Multidisciplinary perspectives and field strengthening questions for gifted education research

ABSTRACT Considers multidisciplinary perspectives as a lens through which to view gifted education research. In the spirit of scholars who have also sought to ask field strengthening questions to help improve scientific advance, we address four questions and encourage other scholars from all disciplines to ask their own questions: 1. What if the field is much larger than we think it is? 2. What if the field is less intellectually diverse than we think it is? 3. What if the evidence supporting the efficacy of gifted programming is not as strong as we think it is? and 4. What if gifted learners may actually be okay even if they are not fully challenged? After reviewing evidence supporting (and failing to support) the core idea behind each of these questions (with a U. S. focus and for academically-gifted students in more academic domains) we conclude with ideas about continuing to ask field strengthening questions to improve research. We should explore questions and ideas and established findings from disciplines outside gifted and try to make gifted a more multidisciplinary field by being open to learning from other ways of approaching knowledge through a plurality of methods and disciplinary perspectives.