The Effectivness Of The Jordanian Arabic Version Of The Cognitive Abilities Screening Test (cogat, Seven) In Identifying Gifted And Talented Children In Kindergarten And Elementray School

A great debate has been occurring in the field of gifted education regarding the validity of the identification procedures. Many scholars have called to change the current criteria that has been used to identify gifted students based on their intellectual abilities. The new trend in the field is calling to adopt comprehensive evaluation procedures that start with screening all students especially at an early age. This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of using a Jordanian Arabic version of the Cognitive Abilities Screening Test (CogAT) Form Seven in identifying gifted and talented children between the ages of five and eight years. This study has three main Procedures: a) the translation of the CogAT test, b) the quantitative producer, which includes the reliability and validity indictors’ extraction, and c) the qualitative producer, which includes the focus group interview to examine the effectiveness of using the Arabic version of CogAT in indentifying gifted students in Jordan. A sample of 280 students was randomly chosen from public and private elementary schools and kindergartens in the city of Amman, the capital city of Jordan, and used teachers\u27 nomination for gifted students. Moreover, six teachers were also randomly chosen to conduct a focus group interview. Those teachers participated in either reviewing the test, administering the test, or nominating gifted children. Teachers attended a focus group discussion, and they were asked to discuss four open-end questions. The results indicated significant and high reliability correlations for the total score of the two-time administration (r = .927) and highly significant internal consistency reliability correlations where Alpha coefficients were .941 for the subtest scores and .962 for the total score and split-half reliability was .904 for the subtest scores and .927 for the total score. Furthermore, the content validity results demonstrated unanimous agreement among reviewers (6 experts and 10 teachers) about the translation match of the original test, suitability to Jordanian culture, and extracting and interpreting the results. One the other hand, the criterion validity results showed that there were no significant correlations (r = .434) between the Arabic version of CogAT Screening Test results and teachers\u27 nomination of gifted students. Finally, the focus group discussion results indicated strong agreement by teachers of the effectiveness of using the Arabic Jordanian version of CogAT Screening Test. Specifically, teachers expressed their satisfaction about the test items and guidelines. Moreover, they unanimously agreed that the test is appropriate to use in Jordan. Also, many positive comments and feedback were provided by teachers about the ability of this test in identifying young gifted children

Perfectionism and Academic Self-Handicapped among Gifted Students: An Explanatory Model

This study aimed to examine the relationship between perfectionism and academic self-handicapping strategies among gifted students in Jordan. This study used a mixed-method approach to explore the relationship as well as exploring any other factors associated with using such strategies. The Revised Almost Perfect Scale (APS-R) and the Academic Self-Handicapping Strategies Scale were used to measure perfectionism and academic self-handicapping among 242 gifted students on a high school for gifted learners. Subsequently, the researchers conducted four focus group discussions with 23 gifted students to identify the factors that may lead those students to use self-handicapping strategies. The results showed that Self-handicapped students were 4.58 times more likely to be maladaptive perfectionists than non-self-handicapped students. The results also revealed a combination of environmental, personal, and cultural factors that contributed to the use of these strategies by gifted students. This study has proposed an explanatory model to illustrate the relationship between perfectionism, academic self-handicapping, and factors that might be related. Finally, this study provided a range of educational implications that can be used in the field of gifted education

Modified EDF Goodness of Fit Tests for Logistic Distribution under SRS and RSS

Modified forms of goodness of fit tests are presented for the logistic distribution using statistics based on the empirical distribution function (EDF). A method to improve the power of the modified EDF goodness of fit tests is introduced based on Ranked Set sampling (RSS). Data are collected via the Ranked Set Sampling (RSS) technique (McIntyre, 1952). Critical values for the logistic distribution with unknown parameters are provided and the powers of the tests are given for a number of alternative distributions. A simulation study is presented to illustrate the power of the new method

Discrimination Between Logistic and Gumbel Distribution

When two distributions have ,approximately ,the  same characteristics, it is often difficult to discriminate between them. In this study, we use the ratio of likelihoods for selecting between the logistic and Gumbel distributions for describing a set of data. The parameters for the logistic and Gumbel distributions are estimated by using maximum likelihood (ML), moments (MOM) and order statistic (OS) methods.  In addition, by using Monte Carlo simulations, discriminating between the two distributions is investigated in terms of the probability of correct selection (PCS) as found based on the different methods of estimation. In general, it is found that the method of ML outperforms all the other methods when the estimators considered are compared in term of efficiency

Bayesian Threshold Moving Average Models

A Bayesian approach in threshold moving average model for time series with two regimes is provided. The posterior distribution of the delay and threshold parameters are used to examine and investigate the intrinsic characteristics of this nonlinear time series model. The proposed approach is applied to both simulated data and a real data set obtained from a chemical system. Key words: Threshold time series, moving average model, Bayesia

ESTIMATION OF THE LOCATION-SCALE PARAMETERS BASED ON RANKED SET SAMPLING COMBINED WITH ADDITIONAL BINOMIAL INFORMATION

In this paper, we propose a modified version of ranked set sample which allows for the incorporation of more information in the inference procedure at almost no cost. This procedure is studied for the location-scale family using a likelihood framework. Our results show that the modified procedure produce more accurate inferences than the original ranked set sampling scheme. © 2023 Pakistan Journal of Statistics

Empirical Characteristic Function Approach to Goodness of Fit Tests for the Logistic Distribution under SRS and RSS

The integral of the squares modulus of the difference between the empirical characteristic function and the characteristic function of the hypothesized distribution is used by Wong and Sim (2000) to test for goodness of fit. A weighted version of Wong and Sim (2000) under ranked set sampling, a sampling technique introduced by McIntyre (1952), is examined. Simulations that show the ranked set sampling counterpart of Wong and Sim (2000) is more powerful

Standardizing the Cognitive Abilities Screening Test (CogAt 7) for Identifying Gifted and Talented Children in Kindergarten and Elementary Schools in Jordan

This study aimed to standardize the Cognitive Abilities Screening Test (CogAT) Form Seven for identifying gifted and talented children ages five-eight years in Jordan. A sample of 280 students was randomly chosen from public and private elementary schools and kindergartens in the city of Amman, the capital city of Jordan, and used teachers' nomination for gifted students. The results indicated significant and high reliability correlations for the total score of the two-time administration (r = .927) and highly significant internal consistency reliability correlations where Alpha coefficients were .941 for the subtest scores and .962 for the total score and split-half reliability was .904 for the subtest scores and .927 for the total score. Furthermore, the content validity results demonstrated unanimous agreement among reviewers (6 experts and 10 teachers) about the translation match of the original test, suitability to Jordanian culture, and extracting and interpreting the results. One the other hand, the criterion validity results showed that there were no significant correlations (r = .434) between the Arabic version of CogAT Screening Test results and teachers' nomination of gifted students

Issues of Children with Disabilities as Reflected in the Jordanian Media from their Parents’ Perception: A SWOT Analysis

A SWOT study was conducted to analyze parents’ perspective on the degree to which Jordanian media covers issues of children with disabilities; the study sample consisted of 129 parents. The researchers constructed a scale consisting of 28 items; furthermore, validity and reliability coefficients of the scale were extracted. Results showed a moderate level of media coverage regarding issues of children with disabilities; social media was given the highest rating followed by visual and audio media, and lastly print media such as newspapers and magazines. However, the majority of media coverage addressed physical and health issues and communicative disorders. Finally, recommendations to improve practices were provided