Exploring Reference Group Effects on Teachers’ Nominations of Gifted Students Sandra Rothenbusch University of Tübingen Ingo Zettler University of Tübingen and University of Copenhagen Thamar Voss, Thomas Lösch, and Ulrich Trautwein University of Tübingen Teachers are often asked to nominate students for enrichment programs for gifted children, and studies have repeatedly indicated that students’ intelligence is related to their likelihood of being nominated as gifted. However, it is unknown whether class-average levels of intelligence influence teachers’ nomi- nations as suggested by theory—and corresponding empirical results— concerning reference group effects. Herein, it was hypothesized that when students’ individual fluid and crystallized intelligence scores were similar, students from classes with higher average levels of intelligence would have a lower probability of being nominated for an enrichment program for gifted children than students from classes with lower average levels of intelligence. Furthermore, we investigated whether 3 teacher variables— experience with giftedness, beliefs about the changeability of intelligence, and the belief that giftedness is holistic or domain specific—would influence the expected reference group effect. In a study com- prising data from 105 teachers and 1,468 of their (German) third-grade students, we found support not only for a positive association between students’ individual intelligence scores and the probability that students would be nominated as gifted but also, more importantly, for the proposed reference group effect: When controlling for individual levels of intelligence, students’ probability of being nominated was higher in classes with lower average levels of intelligence. In addition, the results showed that this reference group effect was stronger when teachers saw giftedness as holistic rather than domain specific. Also, depending on teachers’ kinds of experience with giftedness, the reference group effect varied in size. Keywords: giftedness, intelligence, reference group effects, teacher beliefs, teacher nominations One of the biggest challenges of enrichment programs for gifted students is determining how to select the “right” (i.e., gifted) participants (Heller, 2004; Worrell & Erwin, 2011). Teachers are often involved in the selection of students for such programs (Coleman & Gallagher, 1995; Deku, 2013; Freeman & Josepsson, 2002; McClain & Pfeiffer, 2012), and research has indicated that teachers’ nominations of gifted students are substantially associ- ated with students’ intelligence, achievement, or related constructs (e.g., Endepohls-Ulpe & Ruf, 2006; Schack & Starko, 1990). This focus is in line with most conceptions of giftedness that involve high intelligence and achievement (see Sternberg & Davidson, 2005; Sternberg, Jarvin, & Grigorenko, 2011; Subotnik, Olszewski-Kubilius, & Worrell, 2011, 2012). At the same time, however, research has indicated that many highly intelligent students are overlooked by teachers and are thus not nominated to participate in programs for gifted and talented education (e.g., Gagné, 1994; Hunsaker, Finley, & Frank, 1997; Siegle, Moore, Mann, & Wilson, 2010). Research investigating the problem that some highly intelligent students are not seen as gifted by their teachers has mostly con- sidered individual-level student variables such as age, gender, or social (i.e., ethnic and socioeconomic) background and has pro- vided many fruitful insights in this regard (e.g., Bianco, Harris, Garrison-Wade, & Leech, 2011; Callahan, 2005; Ford, 1998; Speirs Neumeister, Adams, Pierce, Cassady, & Dixon, 2007). Importantly, however, this individual-level perspective might be too narrow. McBee (2010), for instance, found that nomination rates for gifted education programs fluctuated greatly between schools. More generally, research on reference group effects has indicated not only that average levels of ability computed at either This article was published Online First January 21, 2016. Sandra Rothenbusch, Hector Research Institute of Education Sciences and Psychology, University of Tübingen; Ingo Zettler, Hector Research Institute of Education Sciences and Psychology, University of Tübingen, and Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen; Thamar Voss, Hector Research Institute of Education Sciences and Psychology, Univer- sity of Tübingen; Thomas Lösch, LEAD Graduate School, University of Tübingen; Ulrich Trautwein, Hector Research Institute of Education Sci- ences and Psychology, University of Tübingen. The work reported herein was supported by grants from the Hector Foundation II. Sandra Rothenbusch was supported by a scholarship from the Ministry of Science, Research, and the Arts in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Thomas Lösch is a doctoral student at the LEAD Graduate School (GSC1028), funded by the Excellence Initiative of the German federal and state governments. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Sandra Rothenbusch, who is now at the Institute of Educational Psychology, University of Hanover, Schloßwender Straße 1, 30159 Hanover, Germany. E-mail: rothenbusch@psychologie.uni-hannover.de This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. Journal of Educational Psychology © 2016 American Psychological Association 2016, Vol. 108, No. 6, 883– 897 0022-0663/16/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/edu0000085 883