Common and Domain-Specific Cognitive Characteristics of Gifted Students: A Hierarchical Structural Model of Human Abilities

The purpose of this study was to identify common and domain-specific cognitive characteristics of gifted students based on a hierarchical structural model of human abilities. This study is based on the premise that abilities identified by tests can appear as observable characteristics in test or school situations. Abilities proposed by major models of intelligence were reviewed in terms of their power to explain cognitive characteristics of gifted students. However, due to the lack of their explanatory power and disagreement on common and domain-specific cognitive abilities, a new hierarchical structural model was conceptualized in a unique way based on interrelationships between abilities proposed by the models. The newly established model hypothesizes a cognitive mechanism that accounts for how domain-specific knowledge is formed, as well as which abilities are common and domain-specific, how they are related functionally, and how they account for common and domain-specific cognitive characteristics of gifted students. The cognitive mechanism has important implications for our understanding of the chronically controversial concepts, 'intelligence' and 'knowledge.' Clearer definitions of what intelligence is (g or multiple), what knowledge is, and how knowledge develops ('genetic or environmental,' 'rationalistic or empiricist') may result from this model.