UTAGS Administration Manual

This is the technical manual for the Universal Talented and Gifted Screener.

Universal Talented and Gifted Screener (UTAGS)

• features up-to-date national norms,
• is effective with twice-exceptional learners,
• includes bias-free items, and
• provides a fair assessment regardless of student demographic characteristics.

The UTAGS offers schools a time-saving screener for identifying gifted and advanced learners. Designed to be culturally and linguistically fair, the UTAGS is ideal for schools seeking a nationally normed, statistically sound identification screener. Additionally, the UTAGS includes specific considerations for identifying twice-exceptional learners.

UTAGS is designed to screen potentially gifted students in six important areas of school success:

• cognition,
• creativity,
• leadership,
• literacy,
• math, and
• science.

This theoretically sound instrument provides easily interpretable scores in the IQ metric (i.e., Mean = 100; SD = 15) and identifies student strengths/weaknesses in a quick, accurate, and cost-efficient format. UTAGS provides interpretation norms based on a standardization sample of 2,492 participants from 22 states; student demographics closely reflect the United States population.

The authors also provide a guide for local norming. Assessment fairness was a strong consideration during the UTAGS development, and teacher raters are requested to focus on effective examinee communication strategies rather than addressing the particular language/communication mode employed by the student. Consequently, examinees from other cultures, those who have speech limitations, or those who use nonstandard English are not unfairly penalized.

Ages 5 years 0 months-17 years 11 months