Professeur titulaire de Psychologie (retraité, UQAM)
Full professor of Psychology (retired, U of Quebec at Montreal)
A Few Landmark DMGT Publications
The original (1985) DMGT article
Gagné, F. (1985). Giftedness and talent: Reexamining a reexamination of the definitions. Gifted Child Quarterly, 29, 103-112.
This is the launching article of the DMGT that almost never got published (see DMGT bible, chapter 1). It has its origins in a 1983 article in a Quebec (French) educational journal.
The first DMGT handbook chapter
Gagné, F. (1993). Constructs and models pertaining to exceptional human abilities. In K. A. Heller, F. J. Mönks, & A. H. Passow (Eds.), International handbook of research and development of giftedness and talent (pp. 69-87). Oxford: Pergamon Press.
This chapter marked the international recognition of the DMGT as a major model of talent development.
Gagné, F. (1998). A proposal for subcategories within the gifted or talented populations. Gifted Child Quarterly, 42, 87-95.
This article was the first publication in gifted education to promote the importance of addressing the question of the prevalence of gifted and talented individuals.
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A special journal issue targeting the DMGT
Gagné, F. (1999). My convictions about the nature of abilities, gifts, and talents. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 22, 109-136.
Gagné, F. (1999). Is There Any Light at the End of the Tunnel? Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 22, 191-234.
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This PDF document includes the initial target article (first reference), the six reactions by colleagues, and my detailed response to their critiques (second reference).
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One example of my relentless battle for clear concepts
Gagné, F. (2004). An imperative, but, alas, improbable consensus! Roeper Review, 27, 12-14.
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This article was part of a point/counterpoint section. The two other texts, by the late Laurence J. Coleman and Bonnie Cramond respectively, are accessible there:
https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/uror20/27/1?nav=tocList
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Another special journal issue targeting the DMGT
Gagné, F. (2004). Transforming Gifts into Talents: The DMGT as a Developmental Theory. High Ability Studies, 15, 119-147.
This target article presents the DMGT as it stood at that date. It includes a new topic named ‘What makes a difference?’ That question refers to the key subject of hierarchizing causal sources of talent emergence in terms of their strength of impact. I introduced in that section the equation C(GIDE). It highlights the key role of chance in talent development, and also the prominent average impact of gifts (G), with decreasing roles for intrapersonal catalysts (I), developmental process (D), and environmental catalysts (E). That hierarchy was slightly revised in the ‘bible’ (chapter 9).
The target article was followed by seven reactions from colleagues, but I was not offered by the editor an occasion to respond to the viewpoints (positive and negative) expressed. The seven comments can be found there: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/chas20/15/2?nav=tocList
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The giftedness/talent overlap (or lack of)
Bélanger, J., & Gagné, F. (2006). Estimating the size of the gifted/talented population from multiple identification criteria. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 30, 131-163.
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This article summarizes the exceptional PhD dissertation of the main author. The results show that both the type of definition endorsed for the giftedness or talent concepts and the selection ratio have a crucial impact on the prevalence estimates. The authors argue that gifted education will never be recognized as a proper scientific field unless scholars reach a consensus on both the definition and prevalence issues.
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Defending giftedness as a natural ability
Gagné, F. (2009). Debating giftedness: Pronat vs. Antinat. In L. V. Shavinina (Ed.), International handbook on giftedness, pp. 155-198. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer.
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This very detailed chapter (33 000 words) has two parts. In the first, I describe the construct of giftedness (the PRONAT thesis), giving examples of natural abilities in the intellectual and physical domains. In the second part, I demonstrate that opponents (the ANTINAT thesis) use ethically questionable research behavior to defend their position and denigrate the PRONAT position. Professor K. A. Ericsson, the main target of my critique was given an opportunity to respond to my text (see draft here). The last part of my chapter presents a rejoinder to his Postscript. Unfortunately, I have no copy of the chapter (# 6 in that book) that prompted my last-minute decision to write a chapter for that huge (two volumes, 1500+ pages) compendium of information on ‘giftedness’.
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Acronyms galore!
Gagné, F. (2013). The DMGT: Changes within, beneath, and beyond. Talent Development and Excellence, 5, 5-19.
Gagné, F. (2015). From genes to talent: A DMGT/CMTD perspective. Revista de Educación, #368, pp. 12-37.
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These two very satisfying articles survey major changes to the DMGT, explore for the first time the biological underpinnings of the DMGT’s main components, propose a Developmental Model for Natural Abilities (DMNA), then integrate it into an Expanded Model of Talent Development (EMTD). The DMNA was eventually renamed (2020) Developmental Model for Aptitudes (DMA), whereas the EMTD’s name evolved to ‘Comprehensive’ (CMTD), and finally (2016) to ‘Integrative Model of Talent Development’ (IMTD). [Please excuse these changes, due to my limited mastery of English as a second language.]
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Gagné, F., & McPherson, G. E. (2016). Analyzing musical prodigiousness using Gagné’s Integrative Model of Talent Development. In G. E. McPherson (Ed.), Musical prodigies: Interpretations from Psychology, Education, Musicology and Ethnomusicology, (pp. 3-114). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
This quasi book-size (67,000 words) opening chapter of a major handbook on musical prodigiousness is without doubt the most comprehensive presentation of the DMGT, after the ‘bible’ of course! It was my first occasion to discuss extensively the hierarchical organization of the DMGT causal components, a key question identified as the ‘What makes a difference’ (WMD) question.
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