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For the past 10 years, my colleagues and I have been studying student achievement and factors that predict whether or not young people do well in school. In our studies, three factors interact to form an achievement-orientation attitude. First, students who embrace learning believe they have the necessary skills to succeed. Educational psychologists refer to this as self-efficacy. Next, successful students find the learning task meaningful. They are interested in the task or see a purpose to it. Finally, they believe they have the necessary support to be successful. In other words, they do not see their efforts being blocked, and they believe they have the necessary resources and support to do well. When any one of these three factors is missing, it can impact student achievement negatively. In our work, one of these factors surfaces as an important issue with gifted students: student interest as it relates to making school meaningful.
We recently surveyed several hundred university honors students. We asked them to rate their skills in a variety of talent areas (ranging from athletics and music to mathematics and spelling), their interest in those talent areas, and the extent to which they believed natural ability and personal effort contributed to high levels of performance in...