A Meta-Analytic Comparison of Divergent Thinking in Gifted and Nongifted Students

Previous research reported that gifted students tend to be more creative than their nongifted peers, which is consistent with some conceptualizations of giftedness that are inclusive of creativity. The first objective of this meta-analysis was to compare the performance difference between gifted and nongifted students in creative potential, as assessed by divergent thinking (DT) tests. The second objective was to test whether or not differences between gifted and nongifted students vary as a function of culture, gender, age, the definition of giftedness, testing conditions, originality scoring method, test instructions, document type (peer-reviewed articles vs. theses/dissertations), publication language, DT test and DT indices used, and task modality. A three-level multivariate meta-analysis was performed with 358 effect sizes from 54 studies and a total sample size of 12,526. Results indicate that gifted students showed moderate-to-large levels of DT relative to their nongifted peers (g = .658, 95% [.504, .811], p < .001). Data were heterogeneous, QT = 2,898, I2 = 87.6%. Only one moderator significantly explained the variability in the mean effect size: culture (East vs. West vs. Other non-West vs. Africa). The difference in DT performance was significantly larger in studies conducted in Eastern and other non-Western cultures than in Western cultures. The practical implications and limitations of the current study are discussed.