High-ability students in pull-out programs and regular classes: A longitudinal study on perceived social relationships in two settings

Abstract

Although there is wide support for the academic benefits of pull-out programs aimed at high-ability students, it remains unclear how attending these programs is associated with social outcomes. This one-year, three-wave longitudinal study examined the perceived social relationships with teachers and peers of 245 high-ability students in both their pull-out programs and regular classes and included 429 regular students as a reference group. Results of latent growth curve analyses revealed that high-ability students perceived their relationships with regular peers and teachers as equally positive as regular students. Furthermore, high-ability students initially perceived their relationships in their regular class and pull-out program as equally positive, but as the school year progressed, perceived relationships with peers developed slightly more negatively in their regular class. Overall, the findings raise the question whether or not high-ability students actually have a commonly shared need for interaction with like-minded peers and specialized teachers in a special program to experience positive social relationships. Furthermore, the findings suggest that it is important to consider not only the academic benefits, but also the potential social effects in both the regular class and the pull-out program, when selecting students for pull-out programs.

Introduction

Teachers in regular schools teach a heterogenous student population, which can make it challenging to create an encouraging learning environment for all students, including those with above average cognitive abilities (i.e., high-ability students; Reis & Renzulli, 2010). A variety of grouping strategies have been developed to offer high-ability students differentiated instruction (Delcourt, Cornell, & Goldberg, 2007). An often-used grouping strategy is a pull-out program, which takes high-ability students out of their regular classroom for a portion of the school week to let them attend a special class with other high-ability students (Swiatek & Lupkowski-Shoplik, 2003). In the Netherlands, pull-out programs have become increasingly popular in recent decades. Although recent numbers are unknown, in 2010 approximately 40% of primary schools were offering such programs to their high-ability students (Doolaard & Oudbier, 2010). Thus far, many studies found support for positive effects of pull-out programs on academic outcomes, with various meta-analyses (e.g., Hoogeveen, Hell, Mooij, & Verhoeven, 2004; Vaughn, Feldhusen, & Asher, 1991) supporting this. However, little attention has been paid to the social consequences of attending a pull-out program for high ability students (Delcourt et al., 2007; van der Meulen et al., 2014).

Several researchers have theorized that high-ability students benefit socially from being around “like-minded” peers and specialized teachers because they risk negative experiences in their regular classes. They may, for example, feel different or unappreciated by peers and teachers (e.g., Kao, 2011; Riley & White, 2016; Rinn, 2018; Rogers, 2007). Spending time with similarly abled peers may give high-ability students “a sense of recognition” (van der Meulen et al., 2014, p. 291) and allow them to select friends with similar traits, attitudes, and behaviors (Guo, 2006).

Emerging empirical evidence showing that high-ability students indeed benefit socially from interactions with other high-ability students and specialized teachers comes mainly from studies focused on full-time or summer programs (e.g., Cross & Swiatek, 2009; Rinn, 2006; Vogl & Preckel, 2014). However, the social experiences of high-ability students in a pull-out program may be different from those in full-time and summer programs. That is, pull-out programs carry the unique trait that participating students switch frequently between two educational settings: the pull-out program (usually one day a week) and the regular class (the other school days). High-ability students thus need to manage relationships with two groups of peers and two or more teachers. Thus, potential positive social experiences in the pull-out program may extend to the regular class, resulting in positive perceptions of social relationships in both settings. Conversely, the potential positive social experiences in the pull-out program may have a negative impact on how these students value their experiences in the regular class.

Given the increased popularity of pull-out programs, it is important to understand how the social relationships of high-ability students participating in a pull-out program develop. First, this study aimed to gain insight into how high-ability students perceive their social relationships in their regular class as compared to regular students. Next, to investigate whether a program with like-minded peers and specialized teachers helped high-ability students to develop higher-quality relationships, we compared the perceptions of their relationships in both the regular class and the pull-out program.

Education is considered a social rather than an individualistic process, as students learn in interaction with their fellow students and teachers, and do not only have academic but also interpersonal needs (Ostermann, 2000). Positive relationships promote feelings of security in children (Roorda, Koomen, Spilt, & Oort, 2011; Wentzel, 2017). This security is considered essential for exploring and interacting with the environment. Strong ties within the classroom foster students' feelings of security and in turn improve students' learning behavior (Pianta, Nimetz, & Bennett, 1997; Verschueren & Koomen, 2012).

Attachment theory and several other models of social support suggest that perceptions of support from multiple and different sources may reflect a more generalized feeling that one is being cared about (Schwabe, Korthals, & Schils, 2019; Wentzel, Muenks, McNeish, & Russell, 2017). This feeling is also referred to as a sense of community (Ostermann, 2000), connectedness (Weiner, 1990), relatedness (Connell, 1990), or belonging (Goodenow, 1993). All these broad concepts refer to a feeling that individuals matter to one another and the group, and that there is a collective commitment to be together. Experiencing this feeling in the classroom has been linked to important academic outcomes such as positive attitudes toward school and academic achievement (e.g., Patrick, Anderman, & Ryan, 2002; Skinner, Furrer, Marchand, & Kindermann, 2008). Recently, Hornstra, Bakx, Mathijssen, and Denissen (2020) suggested that perceiving high-quality relationships with peers and teachers had equally strong educational benefits for high-ability students as for other students. Moreover, when high-ability students feel supported by their teacher and peers, they have a higher preference to work with others rather than individually (French, Walker, & Shore, 2011).

Although there are individual differences within the group of high-ability students (e.g., Neihart, 1999; Peairs, Putallaz, & Costanzo, 2019), peer relationships of students with high cognitive abilities are generally portrayed positively (e.g., Bain & Bell, 2004; Košir, Horvat, Aram, & Jurinec, 2016; López & Sotillo, 2009; Neihart, 2007; Robinson, 2008). As a group, high-ability students tend to be well liked and popular with peers (Neihart, 1999; Rimm, 2002). Even when high-ability students missed some class time with their regular peers — because they participated in a pull-out program focusing on creativity, social skills, and intellectual enrichment twice a week — regular peers have been found to perceive them as more socially accepted, more social competent, less aggressive, and less victimized as compared to their fellow regular peers (Cohen, Duncan, & Cohen, 1994). High-ability students may be viewed positively by their peers because characteristics that are common in popular children, including high academic success, leadership skills, few behavioral problems, and high self-esteem are more often found in individuals with a high cognitive ability (e.g., Estell et al., 2009; Frentz, Gresham, & Elliott, 1991; Jackson & Bracken, 1998). In addition, intelligence is associated with various social skills, including social perspective taking (Masden, Leung, Shore, Schneider, & Udvari, 2015), managing emotional experiences (Keiley, 2002), loyalty, moral sensitivity, and courage (Neihart, Reis, Robinson, & Moon, 2002).

However, whereas peer reports in general may not indicate disadvantageous consequences of being high-abled for relationships with peers, high-ability students themselves may perceive this differently (Kerr, Colangelo, & Gaeth, 1988; Robinson, 2008). In several studies, high-ability students expressed that they regard their cognitive ability as a source of potential difficulties for their social relationships (e.g., Cross, Frazier, Kim, & Cross, 2018; Jung, Barnett, Gross, & McCormick, 2011; Mammadov, 2019). High-ability students can feel lonely and different from their peers, even though their peers perceive them to be socially successful (e.g., Rimm, 2002; Robinson, 2002). In a notable empirical study, Vialle, Heaven, and Ciarrochi (2007) concluded that high-ability students tended to list more social supports than their peers, but at the same time felt far less satisfied with this than their peers did. Feelings of loneliness and being different may stem from special characteristics that set high-ability students apart from their peers. For example, in Cross et al. (2018) high-income high-ability students expressed feeling alienated by peers because of a different work ethic.

Several studies have documented an increase in perceived quality of peer relationships when high-ability students are given the opportunity to interact with other high-ability students (e.g., Cross & Swiatek, 2009; Preckel, Rach, & Scherrer, 2016). For example, during summer programs aimed at high-ability students, participants experienced a stronger connection to peers and an increase in their social self-concept (Lee, Olszewski-Kubilius, Makel, & Putallaz, 2015; Preckel et al., 2016; Rinn, 2006). To date, no studies have been conducted on how high-ability students' participating in a pull-out program perceive their peer relationships. Pull-out programs carry the unique trait that participating students switch frequently between two educational settings: the pull-out program and the regular class.

One notable study on pull-out programs, although conducted over three decades ago, assessed social acceptance by peers in the regular and pull-out program through peer perceptions (Maddux, Scheiber, & Bass, 1982). Students participating in an advanced math or science program for three hours a day were rated similarly by their pull-out program peers and their regular class peers. Thus, frequently switching between two classrooms did not seem to negatively influence the way the regular peers perceived the high-ability students. Nevertheless, the study is quite outdated and focused on perceptions of peers, which may differ from perceptions of high-ability students themselves. Moreover, the study included only one measurement in both classrooms and therefore development over time could not be investigated.

Two empirical studies on summer programs provide initial clues that switching between two educational environments may have some effects on high-ability students' own perceptions of their relationships with peers (Lee et al., 2015; Makel, Lee, Olszewki-Kubilius, & Putallaz, 2012). When high-ability students participate in a summer program they have to switch between educational environments twice: at the start of the program and at the end of the program. Makel et al. (2012) and Lee et al. (2015) both followed participants prior to and after a summer program ended and thereby included both transitions. Both studies found that high-ability students felt more accepted by peers (Makel et al., 2012), experienced more acceptance and support for their high cognitive ability, felt a stronger connection to peers, and reported greater ease in forming friendships (Lee et al., 2015) while enrolled in the summer program as compared to after they left the summer program and returned to their regular classes. In addition, Makel et al. (2012) reported the remarkable finding that high-ability students' self-concept of social-acceptance became even lower than it was before participating in the summer program, with this decline being stronger for some students than for others. This latter finding seems to indicate a contrast effect in the regular class: High-ability students may have devalued the relationships with regular peers after the summer program because they had experienced what it is like to interact with like-minded peers. This same effect may be at work in students attending a pull-out program.

However, next to these initial clues for contrast effects, there are also indications for spill-over effects. More specifically, positive effects of a pull-out program may spill over to participants' regular classes. Coleman (1995), for example, suggested that when high-ability students are in a setting where they do not have to worry about stigmatization from peers or teachers, they are armed with an increased social self-concept that may have positive consequences in the regular class. Moreover, some high-ability students have mixed feelings regarding complete segregation from their peers because they value both the social diversity of regular classes and like-minded peers in special programs (Adams-Byers, Whitsell, & Moon, 2004) and feel sad about missing and losing old friends (Moon, Swift, & Shallenberger, 2002). For these high-ability students, spending time with both regular and like-minded peers may result in social benefits in the pull-out program as well as the regular class. Thus far, however, spill-over effects have rarely been examined. There is some initial evidence for spill-over effects of pull-out programs in the area of motivation, showing less of a decline in motivation for students attending a pull-out program compared to high-ability students who did not attend a pull-out program (Gubbels, Segers, & Verhoeven, 2014; Hornstra, Van der Veen, & Peetsma, 2016).

Student-teacher relationships have received relatively little attention in the literature on high-ability students (Lee et al., 2015). This is unfortunate, as a good relationship with the teacher is highly valued by high-ability students, as well as by other students. For example, when primary school students were asked to name characteristics of a good teacher, regular as well as high-ability students mostly mentioned teacher characteristics that were associated with relatedness (Bakx, Van Houtert, Van den Brand, & Hornstra, 2019).

As a group, high-ability students have certain characteristics that have been linked to closer and less conflicted student-teacher relationships. For example, on average, high-ability students have higher academic competence (e.g., Jerome, Hamre, & Pianta, 2009; Murray & Greenberg, 2000) and superior social adjustment (e.g., Chan, 2010; Cross, Adams, Dixon, & Holland, 2004; López & Sotillo, 2009; Mueller, 2009). Yet, the literature suggests that (some) high-ability students may experience lower-quality relationships with their teachers; Adams-Byers et al. (2004), for example, found that some high-ability students felt that teachers did not recognize their cognitive ability. Instead, they felt that classmates who excelled for a short time would receive the teachers' recognition. In other studies, some high-ability students expressed that teachers were more like impediments than supporters (Cross et al., 2018) and that teachers viewed them negatively (Berlin, 2009). Studies among teachers provide some more insight into the explanations for these perceptions of high-ability students. Various studies have indicated that many regular teachers lack specific knowledge about teaching high-ability students (e.g., De Boer, Pijl, & Minnaert, 2011; Segers & Hoogeveen, 2012) and hold negative stereotyped beliefs about high-ability students (e.g., Baudson and Preckel, 2013, Baudson and Preckel, 2016; Matheis, Kronborg, Schmitt, & Preckel, 2017; Preckel, Baudson, Krolak-Schwerdt, & Glock, 2015). Prior research indicates that attitudes and beliefs toward groups of students (in this case, high-ability students) can affect the expectations that teachers hold toward individual students and subsequently how they behave toward them (Hornstra, Stroet, Van Eijden, Goudsblom, & Roskamp, 2018). Therefore, it is not surprising that high-ability students list “teachers' assumptions about intellectual giftedness” as one of the most negative aspects of the high-ability label (Berlin, 2009).

There are several reasons to assume that high-ability students may experience a better relationship with their teachers in the pull-out program than with their regular classroom teachers. First, teachers in pull-out programs may be better able to meet high-ability students' needs because of specific features characterizing pull-out programs. These programs are often characterized by relatively small classes (e.g., Hornstra, Van der Veen, & Peetsma, 2017). Students in smaller classes are more likely to experience one-to-one teaching (Blatchford, Bassett, & Brown, 2005), to be provided with a more personalized and appropriate curriculum (Anderson, 2000), and to have more active interactions with teachers (Blatchford, Bassett, & Brown, 2011). Another characteristic of pull-out programs is that the student population is more homogeneous than in regular classes. This could also make it easier for teachers to meet high-ability students' needs in special programs than it is to meet the highly varying needs of the heterogenous student population in regular classes (Reis & Renzulli, 2010). Second, whereas most regular teachers have received little or no specific training about high-ability students and how to meet their needs, most teachers of special programs aimed at high-ability students have received such training (De Boer, Minnaert, & Kamphof, 2013; Robinson, Shore, & Enerson, 2007). Lassig (2009) found that training can make a difference for teachers' beliefs about high-ability students as teachers who had received training about high-ability students were more likely to have favorable attitudes toward them.

There are a few initial indications that high-ability students indeed perceive their relationships with teachers as more positive in pull-out programs than in regular classes. In interviews and focus groups, high-ability students expressed that their specialized teachers were more engaged with students, treated them with more respect, had higher expectations, and offered more support than regular teachers (Hertzog, 2003; Kitsantas, Bland, & Chirinos, 2017).

To the best of our knowledge, there is only one study that examined the development of high-ability students' relationships with teachers over time (Vogl & Preckel, 2014). Vogl and Preckel compared the perceptions of these relationships between high-ability students participating in a full-time program focused on both acceleration and enrichment and a matched control group of students who were not participating in any special program but who had similar cognitive abilities, socioeconomic status, the same sex, and who attended the same school. Whereas the perceived relationships with teachers of participants in the full-time programs remained constant, the perceived relationships of students in the regular classes decreased over time. Participating in a special program thus seemed to prevent high-ability students from having a deteriorating relationship with the teacher. However, this is only initial empirical evidence and it remains unclear how student-teacher relationships are affected when students frequently switch between regular and special program teachers. Similar to relationships with peers, contrast or spill-over effects may affect high-ability students' relationships with teachers in the regular class and pull-out program.

There is a large body of literature suggesting that many high-ability students do not fully reach their cognitive potential (e.g., Morisano & Shore, 2010; Siegle & McCoach, 2018; Worrell, Subotnik, Olszewski-Kubilius, & Dixson, 2019). When high-ability students' social (or cognitive) needs are not optimally met in education, this can have negative outcomes such as disengagement with school or underachievement (Landis & Reschly, 2013). It is therefore important to learn more about factors that are associated with high-ability students' social relationships in school. Pull-out programs are an increasingly popular service and carry the unique trait that participating students switch frequently between the pull-out program and the regular class. This may have consequences for their relationships in both settings. Yet, to date, little attention has been paid to the social consequences of attending a pull-out program (for some exceptions see, Delcourt et al., 2007; van der Meulen et al., 2014). The current study therefore examined how participating in a pull-out program was associated with high-ability students' perceived social relationships with their peers and teachers in their regular class and pull-out program.

This study had two main aims. First, this study examined whether high-ability students perceived lower-quality relationships in a regular class as compared to regular students. Second, this study investigated whether a special program with like-minded peers and specialized teachers helped high-ability students to develop higher-quality relationships.

Taken together, the literature suggests that high-ability students can perceive difficulties in their social relationships with peers and teachers (e.g., Berlin, 2009; Vialle et al., 2007) and that interaction with like-minded students and specialized teachers in a pull-out program may help high-ability students perceive more positive relationships (e.g., Lee et al., 2015; Makel et al., 2012; Vogl & Preckel, 2014). Therefore, we expected that high-ability students participating in a pull-out program would generally report (a) less positive relationships with peers and teachers in the regular class than regular students, and (b) more positive relationships in their pull-out program than in their regular class. Regarding the development of their perceived relationships in the pull-out program and regular class, we hypothesized two possibilities: contrast effects (i.e., perceptions of the social relationships in the regular class might become more negative compared to perceptions of the social relationships in the pull-out program) or spill-over effects (i.e., positive social experiences in the pull-out program spill over to the regular class), resulting in a similarly positive development of perceived social relationships in the regular class. There are initial clues for both possibilities (see Makel et al., 2012, for contrast effects; see Gubbels et al., 2014, for spill-over effects).