Revolving Door Identification Model

Background

School personnel were routinely eliminating highly creative and productive students from participation in enrichment programs because they did not score in the top 1 to 3 percent of the population on either achievement or intelligence tests. Many of the same teachers who could not recommend these students because they did not meet a specified cutoff score believed the students would excel when they had the opportunity to become involved in high levels of creative, productive, and enriched work.

Teachers also failed to identify students who were reading and doing mathematics at an accelerated level who were missing the cutoff scores for inclusion in the gifted program by a point or two. Earlier research conducted by E. Paul Torrance had demonstrated that students who were rated highly on creativity measures achieved well in school and on achievement tests but were not selected for gifted programs because their scores were below the cutoff for admission. Research conducted by Sally Reis reported that when a broader pool of students of the general population, identified as the talent pool, was able to participate in Types I and II enrichment experiences, the quality of their completed Type III products was equal to that of students who were traditionally identified as gifted.

This research led Renzulli and his colleagues to field tests and trials with the RDIM in which a talent pool (10%–15%) of students receives regular enrichment experiences and the opportunity to “revolve into” Type III creative productive experiences. In RDIM, students were selected for participation in the talent pool on the basis of multiple criteria that included achievement scores, teacher nomination, creativity, and other locally selected indicators. Once identified and placed in the talent pool through the use of multiple criteria such as test scores; teacher, parent, or self-nomination; and/or examples of creative potential or productivity, students are observed in classrooms and enrichment experiences for signs of advanced interests, creativity, or task commitment. This part of the identification process, called action information, was found to be an instrumental part of the identification process in assessing students' interest and motivation to become involved in Type III creative productivity. Further support for this approach was contributed by Robert Kirschenbaum and Del Siegle, who demonstrated that students who are rated highly on measures of creativity tend to do well in school and on measures of achievement. The development of the expanded identification on the RDIM led to the need for new guidelines for how all of the components of the previous triad programs and the RDIM could be implemented. The resulting work, titled the school-wide enrichment model (SEM), was developed by Joseph Renzulli and Sally Reis.

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