Subject+Acceleration

The topic of Subject Acceleration is closely related to that of Grade Skipping. For this discussion, I will treat Subject Acceleration as a fast paced version of the general curriculum which allows for students to progress and focus more on analyzing, synthesizing and evaluating what they have learned. Grade Skipping is fully explained and analyzed on a separate page of this wiki.

Studies have shown that students that take part in an accelerated curriculum achieve more than those students of equally talented peers (Adelman, 1999). Often, these accelerated classes can take the form of a summer session, Saturday classes during the school year and summer talent search programs. Theses classes tend of focus on one of the four core subjects and are fast pace and intensive in nature. Research shows the tremendous impact these fast pace intensive courses can have. Stanley and Stanley (1986) reported that students were able to learn high school biology, chemistry or physics in three weeks. In a study by Kolitch and Brody (1992) they found that of forty three accelerated math students, 9th grade was the typical age to begin calculus. The long term implications of Acceleration should also be noted. Of students selected to complete an Accelerated one year math curriculum put on by the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth, those that completed the program were found to continue to excel above like ability peers ten years after the initial study was conducted by Swiatek and Benbow (1991). Students who attend face paced courses are also more likely to attend graduate school.

Despite the numerous findings that support the academic success that can be accomplished through acceleration, researches have found that students and parents of students that are gifted worry about the socio-emotional affects that come with acceleration. The current research on the emotional affects of being a part of an accelerated program is limited, but tends to indicate that students do suffer anxiety or adjustment issues. Kulik's study in 2004 on emotional outcomes actually showed positive results as far as student's educational plans, no effects on participation in activities outside of school and no consistent findings on student's adjustment. Richardson and Benbow (1990) did not find positive or negative results in terms of students acceptance or interaction with other peers and Sayler and Brookshire (1993) actually reported that students who were accelerated felt accepted by their peers more than similar same age peers. The research, as can be seen, is far from conclusive.

Karen Roger's effect size in her synthesis (1992,2002, 2005) show over a half years additional gain for academic growth for students that are accelerated. Roger's research does show a -.9 effect size for esteem. As noted above, parents and students do worry about acceleration, but limited research on emotion impact of acceleration makes it hard to debate if the potential consequences for acceleration are outweighed by negatives.

As a program option for gifted education, acceleration is an interesting topic. As discussed above, most of the research on acceleration is on summer/talent search programs. Obviously you can not build a gifted program around summer, Saturday or talent search programs. Theses can be wonderful experiences for students that are gifted, but how can acceleration be applied to an in school gifted program? One potential way is create a gifted program with classes specifically for gifted students that accelerate the curriculum. This could be in the form of completing a three year math program in two years (curriculum telescoping) or by having the subjects such as language arts, accelerating the program to include higher levels of materials (novels, grammatical usage) earlier than the general curriculum. To take part in a gifted accelerated program may also ease the anxiety issue for students that are gifted. This type of accelerated program has the potential to be very successful.