The current study expanded the group of students studied to assess the heterogeneity
of high-ability students; however, further expansion is needed. Specifically, because
previous research on general adolescent populations has revealed racial/ethnic and
age-related differences in how youths spend their free time, future work should investigate
the extent to which such differences also exist within a high-ability sample.
Although parents from all groups were highly educated, additional inquires into potential
family financial differences between the different groups of high-ability students
would shed light on the extent to which attendance is a function of family finances or
of interest. Similarly, expanding the sample beyond talent search students as well as
students from states other than North Carolina would help identify potential factors
unique to these particular groups.
The depth and breadth of analysis of activities should also be expanded. For example,
participation can be analyzed more deeply through more refined measurements of
activity participation in terms of types of activities (team vs. individual sports, etc.) as
well as level of involvement (1 hr a week vs. 20 hr a week, etc.). Given the nature of
the present data, the student who participated in one sport could not be differentiated
from the student who participated in three sports or the student who spent an hour a
week on one academic club from the student spending 10 hr a week in several academic
clubs. Similarly, other ways adolescents spend their time outside the classroom
should also be analyzed to better portray the lives of high-ability youth. For example,
the recent growth of online social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter may
(or may not) take time away from activities that had previously occupied students.
Including these additional variables will likely further differentiate the groups discussed
in the current article and better illuminate the role of activities in their lives.
Overall, the current findings show high-ability students of all levels to be highly
engaged in a variety of activities outside the classroom. The current study adds to the
understanding of the lives of high-ability students, specifically, how they spend their
time outside the classroom. Furthermore, it underscores the heterogeneity of highability
students in their academic and nonacademic behaviors and interests. Although
this may be a well-established belief within the field, it continues to be a widely
believed myth outside the field (for a review, see Reis & Renzulli, 2009). The current
study provides a new facet in how high-ability students differ from each other.
Acknowledgment
We are grateful to Terence Costello for exceptional data management and to Alexandra Cooper
for statistical consultation. This research is based on data from the North Carolina Education
Research Data Center at Duke University. We acknowledge the North Carolina Department of
Public Instruction for collecting and providing this information.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.