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September 13, 2007Future Career Path of Gifted Youth Can Be Predicted by Age 13 |
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The future career path and creative direction of gifted youth can be predicted well by their performance on the SAT at age 13, a new study from Vanderbilt University finds. The study offers insights into how best to identify the nation's most talented youth, which is a focus of the new $43 billion America Competes Act recently passed by Congress to enhance the United States' ability to compete globally. The research was drawn from the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth or SMPY, which is tracking 5,000 individuals over 50 years identified at age 13 as being highly intelligent by their SAT scores. Lubinski and Camilla Benbow, Patricia and Rodes Hart Dean of Education and Human Development at Peabody College, lead the study. Their co-author on the new report, published online by Psychological Science Sept. 7, was Gregory Park, a doctoral student in Peabody's Department of Psychology and Human Development. "We found significant differences in the creative and career paths of individuals who showed different ability patterns on the math and verbal portions of the SAT at age 13," Benbow, a member of the National Science Board and vice chair of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel, said. Of the 18 participants who later earned tenure-track positions in math/science fields at top-50 U.S. universities, their average age 13 SAT-M score was 697, and the lowest score among them was 580, a score greater than over 60 percent of all students who take the SAT. These results now show us that we can also predict in which areas they are most likely to excel," she said.
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