Real World Application Only After Empirical Investigation: Stop Declaring Things are Characteristic
By: Matthew C. Makel, PhD, Professor and Research Chair in High Abilities Studies, University of Calgary
When researchers write for the public, the goal is often to communicate new or existing research that the authors feel could be helpful if applied in schools. Today, I’m doing the opposite: I’m writing about something that I’ve seen applied in the real world that provides almost no research to support it.
The “used in the real world but lacks research evidence” thing I am talking about: Characteristics lists of gifted students. These are lists of features that purport to describe students. They may include items such as curious, mature sense of humor, perfectionist, sensitive, and socially aware. These lists are everywhere. From school websites and advocacy group webpages to textbooks and popular press books, these lists are everywhere. They often claim to inform parents and guide identification. These lists can sometimes even claim to differentiate gifted from “bright” students—although not all agree that even attempting this is useful.
With such broad circulation, one might expect a strong research base. But this does not appear to be the case—for lists or even for individual items. The research supporting characteristics is weak to non-existent. For example, you may have heard about a claimed connection between giftedness and sensory sensitivity. You may have even observed students who have such sensitivities. Rinn (2026) reviewed the research to assess the strength of the evidence of this claimed connection. First, she found the literature extremely limited. This does not mean we know nothing, but also does not indicate a strongly constructed evidence-base. The evidence that does exist has largely been mixed and inconclusive. At best, one might conclude from the evidence that some gifted students may have sensory sensitivity. But what does that even tell us? If some typical students also have sensory sensitivity (and they do), then the presence of sensory sensitivity is neither useful for a descriptive list of gifted students nor as a part of any “diagnostic” process for identifying students.
Limitations of Characteristics Lists
Making lists based on “this is what I’ve observed” may seem helpful, but it is not. It can even be dangerous. Lists based purely on observation are the ultimate example of confirmation bias. Instead, we need systematic evidence assessing prevalence rates in all students to know whether a feature (e.g., mature sense of humor, sensory sensitivity) is typical in gifted students and actually distinguishes gifted students from their peers. Simply knowing the prevalence in gifted students is not useful. It does not tell us whether they are different from typical students. For example, knowing that almost every gifted student has two eyes is not particularly useful, given that almost every student has two eyes. Some gifted students may like pizza. Knowing this is not particularly useful information if the prevalence rate is not meaningfully different from the general population.
In a recent paper, I assessed several lists of gifted characteristics for whether they report evidence to support their use. I assessed them on factors like whether the list cites primary research, whether it is connected to a specific definition of giftedness, identification practices, or domains (like math or music). In general, the lists performed quite poorly. They were often vague, cited non-research for support, cited research based on small non-representative samples, or mis-cited the research findings. In fact, I found that when lists did cite primary research that compared prevalence rates in gifted and typical students, these studies were often decades old. Can we safely assume their findings generalize to modern classrooms?
Let me make up an extreme situation to illustrate my point. Imagine I invited a group of gifted students from a single school to attend a workshop for $5,000 on a desert island at 6am on a Saturday morning in July. Would you trust any broad generalizations about gifted students based on the students who showed up? Of course not. And you shouldn’t. The students who showed up would not be a representative sample of all gifted students. Yes, this is an obvious case of selection bias. But the research cited by characteristics lists is often nearly as problematic. There were instances where characteristics lists cited case studies of individual students as the basis for developing their items. How can a study of one individual serve as the foundation of a general characteristics list?
So what do we do?
There may be some list out there that does have strong empirical support. But if so, I think it is an outlier. As described in the Table below, I’ve developed a list of limitations/concerns that I have observed in characteristics lists. I also provide some guidance to help readers navigate characteristics lists to see if the specific one being used may provide sufficient evidence that it may be helpful (prediction: it won’t be).
Characteristics List Limitations and a Proposed Path Forward (Adapted from Makel, 2025)
|
Potential Concern |
Questions to Ask |
Things to Look For |
|
Empirical evidence |
What primary studies support this list and its items?
|
Lists with no references might only reflect that person’s opinion.
Lists that cite only research handbooks or newsletters still might not have any empirical evidence.
Lists that cite primary research may have relied on a different definition or service than what your school uses |
|
Alignment with definitions |
Is the characteristic list using a definition of giftedness similar to the definition used by your school? If not, is this list still useful to use in your context?
|
Look for the definition of giftedness used by the list (if there is one)
Look for guidance on when and how the list should be used. Are the authors claiming the list should be used by anyone and any time? If so, what evidence is provided to suggest that is reasonable? |
|
Alignment with identification and selection practices |
Is the characteristic list relying on identification assessments and criteria similar to those used by your school? If not, is this list still useful to use in your context? |
Look for the specific identification criteria and selection practices (e.g., assessments, cutoffs) used by the list.
Major differences between those used by the list and your school (e.g., selecting top 1% vs top 10%; identifying for creative writing vs grouped reading) may lead to a mismatch in your list |
|
Clarity of Items |
Are the items in the list all clearly different from each other, representing distinct characteristics? |
Look for whether all items are clearly different from each other (or purposefully combined into a subscale). |
|
Self-fulfilling prophecy and bias |
How was the list developed?
Would using the list simply recreate the existing system? |
Look for ways that “this is how things have always been done” may be influencing what is included—and excluded—from lists
Look for an acknowledgment that the list may not describe all gifted students and that students can be gifted without demonstrating all the list items. |
|
Prevalence rates |
Does the list cite research that provides the prevalence rates of each characteristic in both the gifted and non-gifted samples? |
Look for the magnitude of the gap between gifted and non-gifted samples in the prevalence of each item. Prevalence rate gaps of 51% vs 49% likely aren’t as informative as a gap like 90% vs 5%. |
In a perfect world, I would have an alternative ready to replace Characteristics Lists. But sadly, I do not. Universal screening of all students with a measure that is part of the identification process may help. But this is nothing like how characteristics lists have been proposed to be used.
To be clear, gifted students may have characteristics like sensory sensitivity. My point is: research generally has not checked to verify whether this is true. Until sufficient research has been done to assess the characteristics of gifted students, we simply do not know.
References
Makel, M. C. (2026). Gifted characteristics lists: Big claims, little evidence. High Ability Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/13598139.2026.2670280
Makel, M. C. (2025). Making a list requires checking it twice: A call for empirical evidence in characteristics lists. Gifted Child Quarterly, 70(3), 279-295. http://doi.org/10.1177/00169862251392934
Peters, S. J., Makel, M. C., Lee, L. E., Stambaugh, T., McBee, M. T., McCoach, D. B., & Johnson, K. R. (2024). What Makes for an Effective Gifted and Talented Screener? Gifted Child Today, 47(2), 98-107. https://doi.org/10.1177/10762175231222301
Rinn, A. N. (2026). Sensory Sensitivity: Implications From the Fields of Medicine and Psychology for a Gifted Population. Gifted Child Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1177/00169862261453385
