Development of Assessment Tool for Identifying Gifted Dancers

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop an assessment tool which is able to identify dance giftedness from an educational point of view. Questions were developed by a team of 6 experts with more than 10 years of experience in research on dance education as well as teaching experience. The developed questions were subjected to exploratory factor analysis 50 experts in the dance field. Subsequently, the following items were obtained: 16 items on body functional intelligence (physical, strength, kinesthetic, control ability), 16 on motion cognitive intelligence (movement accuracy, technique acceptance, sequence recognition, task concentration), 14 on image expression intelligence (synesthetic expression, musical harmony, emotional acting), 14 on creative fusion intelligence (choreography originality, choreography application, problem solving ability), and 14 on intrinsic motivation (dance self organization, dance competence, and dance immersion in dance), resulting in 74 items overall. Based on these results, we discussed whether giftedness in dance could be distinguished more precisely from a multifaceted perspective. It refers to the motivation that comes from one's own interest, curiosity, self-satisfaction, and sense of accomplishment while dancing. It was possible to confirm the potential of dance giftedness from an educational point of view, suggesting an expansion of educational opportunities for potential gifted children.