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Gifted Child Quarterly

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Assessing the Scholarly Reach ! The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0016986220928322
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Jaret Hodges1 , Rachel U. Mun1 , Mattie E. Oveross1 and

Jessica K. Ottwein1

Abstract
Lewis M. Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius stands as one of the landmark studies of the 20th century in the educational and
psychological sciences. This longitudinal study of individuals in the top 1% of general cognitive ability has sparked interest and
debate among scholars for nearly 100 years. In this study, we examine how Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius has influenced
academia through a bibliometric citation analysis. We gathered all scholarly works that cited one of the volumes of Terman’s
Genetic Studies of Genius and appeared in academic journals and mapped out the growth of scholarly citations within differing
academic fields. We found that the influence of Terman’s studies extends beyond the field of education and psychology into
business, medicine, and the sciences.

Keywords
bibliometric, gifted education, Lewis Terman

Lewis M. Terman is widely considered a founding schol-
ar or “father” of gifted education (Jolly, 2008a; National
Association for Gifted Children [NAGC], n.d.; Warne,
2019; Winkler & Jolly, 2013). In turn, his seminal work,
Genetic Studies of Genius, is arguably the foundational
work of the field. In what is currently psychology’s lon-
gest running longitudinal study, Terman recruited 1,444
individuals (later expanded to 1,528 [Burks et al., 1930])
with high cognitive ability and documented their life
span development. Although Terman’s study has gar-
nered deeper insight into the lives of high-ability individ-
uals and lent legitimacy to the field of gifted education,
scholars continue to debate the merit and influence of his
work nearly 100 years after the publication of its first
volume (Warne, 2019; Winkler & Jolly, 2013).
In the field of gifted education, discussions of
Terman’s legacy largely center on his contributions to
intellectual testing and the nature of intellectual precoc-
ity (Lubinski, 2016; Lubinski & Benbow, 2020, in this
special issue; Warne, 2019). Furthermore, many scholars
of gifted education recognize the merit of Terman’s work
as precipitating nearly 100 years of additional scholar-
ship and advancement within the field (Warne, 2019).
However, the critical issues of gifted education in the
21st century (e.g., underrepresentation of students
based on race/ethnicity; Hodges et al., 2019; Peters
et al., 2019; Siegle et al., 2016) were not addressed
within Terman’s work, leading to substantive criticisms
of its modern relevance (Winkler & Jolly, 2013). As with
any field, Terman’s legacy is viewed through the lens of
scholarship specific to that field. This approach allows
for greater depth in understanding the legacy of
Terman’s work within gifted education, but it can also
lead to an insular viewpoint.
Though the impact of Terman’s work on gifted edu-
cation research is clear, less is known regarding the
scholarly reach of Terman’s work and how Genetic
Studies of Genius may have influenced scholars outside
of the field of gifted education. Given the association of
Terman’s work with eugenics (Warne, 2019), scholars
might not be surprised that authors of a publication
appearing in the academic journal, The Journal of
Genetic Psychology, cited Terman’s Genetic Studies of
Genius (Stamps & Clark, 1987). More surprising might
be finding Terman’s work cited in an article examining
the development of friendship among older adults in The
International Journal of Aging and Human Development
(Field, 1999), or in an article considering the impact of
nature versus nurture on athletic performance in the aca-
demic journal Sports Medicine (Davids & Baker, 2007).
Though unexpected, these examples demonstrate that
the reach of Terman’s legacy extends far beyond gifted
education. To develop a deeper understanding of his
1
University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA
Corresponding Author:
Jaret Hodges, University of North Texas, 1300 West Highland Street,
Denton, TX 76203-1277, USA.
Email: jaret.hodges@unt.edu
2 Gifted Child Quarterly 0(0)
work’s greater impact, a broader and more holistic
survey of the influence of his work must be conducted.
The overarching purpose of our study is to provide a
broad overview of the legacy of Terman’s Genetic
Studies of Genius and how that legacy has evolved over
time, using a bibliometric approach. We provide a broad
overview of Lewis M. Terman’s legacy within gifted edu-
cation followed by a brief description of his work,
Genetic Studies of Genius. We then detail our analytical
approach, including a description of how bibliometric
analysis has been used within the field of gifted educa-
tion. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of our
results and the limitations of our analysis.
Terman’s Legacy in Gifted Education
Interest in gifted education has ebbed and flowed with
the ever changing political, economic, and social climate
of the times. In the United States, scholars have docu-
mented instances of gifted programming in a small
number of schools as far back as the late 1800s
(Colangelo & Davis, 2003). However, scholarly research
and development in gifted education began in earnest
through the contributions of several prominent psychol-
ogists, chief among them Stanford psychologist Lewis
Terman (Davis et al., 2013; Feldhusen, 2001). In the
early 1900s, Terman and colleagues at Stanford devel-
oped the Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scale, which quick-
ly became the dominant measure of intelligence in the
United States (Boake, 2002). Furthermore, Terman’s
longitudinal study of high-IQ children (as indicated by
scores of above 140 on the Stanford–Binet intelligence
scale; or children with scores of 135 who had siblings
with scores at or above 140) in California school districts
led to conclusions that potential giftedness can emerge in
childhood (Tannenbaum, 1986) and that gifted children
were largely better adjusted, healthier, and exhibited
higher academic achievement than those who were not
selected for the study (Robinson & Clinkenbeard, 2008).
This was contrary to the prevailing views of the early
1900s, when gifted individuals were perceived as sickly,
abnormal, and emotionally unstable (Jolly, 2008a;
Lubinski, 2016; Rinn & Bishop, 2015).
Terman’s support of the eugenics movement early on
in his career, evident in his membership in eugenics soci-
eties, his scholarly writings, and his conclusions drawn
from data, is also a part of his legacy that has garnered
particular criticism (Fallace, 2016; Jolly, 2008b; Warne,
2019). Fallace (2016) noted how the discussion of race
“permeated” the interpretation of Terman’s work and
that “his data justified the existing social order, but
traced social inequality to innate and hereditary differ-
ences” (p. 263). For example, Terman (1916) made
observations in reviewing case studies of two
Portuguese siblings that “their dullness seems to be
racial, or at least inherent in the family stocks from
which they come . . .” (p. 91) which he elaborated as typ-
ical in “Mexicans, Indians, or negroes” (p. 92). Terman’s
data indicated that White students with parents in pro-
fessional occupations consistently achieved higher IQ
scores as compared with non-White students with
working-class parents, leading to his conclusions that
IQ was genetically based and inherited (Fallace, 2016;
Jolly, 2008b). His fervor for eugenics appeared to have
diminished later in his career, perhaps due to the eugen-
ics movement falling “out of favor” with scientists in the
1930s and with emerging evidence that the empirical
data did not support the conclusions and forced sterili-
zation policies underlying this disturbing movement
(Warne, 2019, p. 7).
Part of Terman’s legacy has persisted, however, the
view of giftedness as closely connected, if not synony-
mous, with high intelligence as measured by IQ tests
(Dai, 2010; Newman, 2008) and as present in the
upper end of the bell curve or only 3% to 5% of
school children (Borland, 2009)—a popular view for
much of the 20th century. Indeed, a frequent criticism
of Terman’s work was his emphasis on the “paramount
importance” (Warne, 2019, p. 4) of intelligence, and on
IQ as its measure. Warne (2019) clarified and elaborated
on Terman’s view that while IQ tests were useful for
understanding global intelligence, he did not believe
these tests could capture every cognitive ability. Also,
Terman acknowledged the importance of psychological
factors in addition to intelligence, as became apparent in
later volumes of Genetic Studies of Genius (Warne, 2019).
Contemporary scholars typically subscribe to a multi-
dimensional view of giftedness (Dai, 2010; Renzulli,
2011; Sternberg, 1997) and consider the importance of
the interaction of individuals within systems (Ziegler
et al., 2017), reflecting a movement set in motion in
the 1960s and 1970s, well after Terman’s death in
1956. During the height of the American Civil Rights
movement, the field of gifted education began to pay
more attention to the lack of diversity in gifted educa-
tion, which led to the Marland (1972) report and an
expanded definition of giftedness beyond high IQ that
included domain-specific academic aptitude, creative or
productive thinking, leadership ability, visual and per-
forming arts, and psychomotor ability. Despite this
momentum in the field, the conception of giftedness as
high IQ remained influential in the public mind, partic-
ularly in American schools (Borland, 2009) where dis-
tricts still rely on the use of cognitive assessments to
make gifted identification decisions. Furthermore, these
practices have contributed to the underrepresentation of
students from diverse racial, ethnic, and economic back-
grounds in gifted programs across the nation (Ford,
2014; Hamilton et al., 2018; Hodges et al., 2018; Mun
et al., 2016; Siegle et al., 2016).
Hodges et al.
Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius
Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius spanned five volumes
of work published between 1925 and 1959. Two fol-
lowup studies were published in 1968 and 1995. In the
first volume, Mental and Physical Traits of a Thousand
Gifted Children, Terman exhaustively described the
sample of individuals who elected to participate in his
study (Terman, 1926). Everything from reading interests
to medical examination results to educational history
were described by Terman. Terman’s purpose for this
volume was to demonstrate that poor health, abnormal
personality, and unsociableness were not correlated with
genius. The second volume, The Early Mental Traits of
Three Hundred Geniuses, was published in the following
year by Terman’s assistant, Catharine Cox (Cox, 1926),
as an accompanying volume. In this work Cox, under
the direction of Terman, examined the biographical
information of 300 historical individuals to estimate
their probable IQ’s.
Four years later, Terman would publish his first
follow-up study in the third volume of his series, The
Promise of Youth: Follow-up Studies of a Thousand
Gifted Children (Burks et al., 1930). Terman’s methodo-
logical approach in his studies also began to be scruti-
nized by scholars. Pearson (1931) authored a pointed
critique in Nature of Terman’s third volume by pointing
out issues with Terman’s lack of control group, weak
instrumentation, and statistical techniques. Terman’s
next volume tracked his sample into adulthood
(Terman & Oden, 1947).
In The Gifted Child Grows Up: Twenty-five Years’
Follow-up of a Superior Group, Terman described
follow-ups taken with his sample in 1936, 1940, and
1945. He explored his subjects’ current career, family
life, and even their political beliefs. In the fifth and
final volume published a year and a half following
Terman’s death, The Gifted Group at Mid-life, Terman
assessed his subjects’ intellectual and social lives
(Terman & Oden, 1959). Terman’s conclusion was that
intellectually gifted individuals do not have vastly differ-
ent health or social outcomes than individuals in the
general population. Intellectually gifted individuals got
married, got divorced, and had nonvocational interests
(e.g., sports, music, and gardening were the most popu-
lar hobbies of individuals in Terman’s sample [p. 107,
Table 44]). Terman was able to show that intellectually
gifted children became gifted adults.
Terman also had a deep attachment to his subjects.
As described by Oden in the introduction to the fifth
volume of Genetic Studies of Genius, Terman would
remind the individuals that even though in his report,
they would be represented largely as numbers and sta-
tistics, they were still people with their own lives and
meaningfulness (Terman & Oden, 1959).
3
Following Terman’s death, his Genetic Studies of
Genius would be continued a decade later by Oden
(1968) in The Fulfillment of Promise: 40-Year Follow-
Up of the Terman Group. At this stage, the participants
were in their 50’s. Oden reported on the statistics of the
group ranging from their criminality to their divorce
rates. Following the follow up report, Oden examined
possible correlates for success in the Terman group. She
found that socioeconomic status was positively correlat-
ed with achievement, whereas divorce was negatively
correlated (Oden, 1968). Finally, she concluded that
intellect was not enough to create success, and suggested
that an individual must have ambition and drive as well.
The Terman group was reexamined in the late stages
of their life by the self-proclaimed third generation of
scholars in Terman’s Stanford lab: Holahan et al.
(1995). The authors focused on retirement and satisfac-
tion later in life of the participants in Terman’s Genetic
Studies of Genius, surveying the Terman group between
1972 and 1986. These authors stated that in their follow-
up with the Terman group, they had asked questions of
the participants such as “what would you have done
differently” (38.1% stated they would change nothing)
and “what was the turning point of your life” (65.5%
stated that marriage was the turning point).
Stanford scholars would not be the only researchers
to examine Terman’s collection of data. Though quickly
approaching a century since data were first collected, the
Genetic Studies of Genius sample is still being utilized to
conduct scholarly research. Subotnik et al. (1989) com-
pared Terman’s results with those from the Hunter
College Elementary School (HCES), a university labora-
tory school for the gifted that opened in New York City
in 1941. They found similar outcomes for students that
attended HCES as those reported for students who were
part of Terman’s sample. Where the two samples dif-
fered was with respect to outcomes for women. The
women who attended HCES were far more likely to
hold advanced degrees than similarly intellectually
gifted women in Terman’s sample. Subotnik et al.
(1989) noted that opportunities for women had greatly
changed within the time frame separating the two sam-
ples. They also noted that Terman was aware of the lack
of opportunity for women and had decried the fact that
society limited gifted women’s opportunities.
Exploring predictors of longevity, Friedman and
Martin (2011) examined Terman’s data with a specific
focus on the participant group in old age. Furthermore,
economists used the Terman sample to understand pre-
dictors of wage earning in high-ability individuals
(Gensowski et al., 2011). The authors provided evidence
that higher ability is linked to higher earnings, indepen-
dent of education, within the Terman sample. As well,
Simonton and colleagues extended the historiometric
work from the second volume (Cox, 1926; Simonton,
4 Gifted Child Quarterly 0(0)
2016; Simonton & Song, 2009). Recently, Warne and
Liu (2017) reanalyzed Terman’s sample to examine the
effect of grade skipping on income later in life. The
scholars found that male students within Terman’s
sample who had skipped a grade reported incomes
between 3.63% and 9.35% greater than their male
peers. Nearly, 100 years after its inception, Terman’s
sample is still being used to produce new scholarly
works.
Bibliometrics
Bibliometrics is the scientific study of the influence of
written materials. Specifically, bibliometrics is an area
of research that seeks to “analyze, quantify, and measure
communication phenomena, to build accurate formal
representations of their behavior for explanatory, evalu-
ative, and administrative purposes” (De Bellis, 2009, p.
3). In other words, bibliometrics is concerned with quan-
tifying and studying how people communicate.
Particularly, scholars who work in this field study indices
(e.g., article keywords or twitter hashtags), communica-
tion networks (e.g., social networks), and the flow of
information across different mediums (e.g., viral posts
in social media, or in this case, how and when a scholarly
work is cited [De Bellis, 2009]). Recently, scholars
received considerable public attention by using a biblio-
metric analysis to highlight differences in scholarly cita-
tion rates between men and women (Lariviere et al.,
2013). The authors found that women, across the
globe, were cited at lower rates than men, a finding
they attributed to structural barriers toward women in
academia (e.g., men tended to have longer careers and
thus were more likely to gain prominence).
Within the field of education, bibliometric analysis
has been used to analyze global trends in engineering
education research (Jesiek et al., 2011); to examine the
current state of learning analytics and predict future
trends within the field (Dawson et al., 2014); and to
examine the common characteristics shared by the top
cited works within medical education (Azer, 2015).
Bibliometrics in Gifted Education. Within the field of gifted
education in the past decade, bibliometric analyses have
been conducted to survey the field analytically. One
example is Long et al.’s (2014) examination of research
productivity in creativity research. The authors analyzed
four journals (Creativity Research Journal, Gifted Child
Quarterly, Journal of Creative Behavior, and Psychology
of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts) and their pub-
lished scholarly works between 2002 and 2014. They
found that only one third of published scholarly works
on creativity were cited within other scholarly works.
The remaining two thirds had 0 citations. In compari-
son, Hernández-Torrano and Kuzhabekova (2019)
analyzed Gifted Child Quarterly, High Ability Studies,
Journal for the Education of the Gifted, and Roeper
Review to descriptively assess how the field of gifted edu-
cation has grown both in terms of research productivity
and which countries highly productive scholars resided
in. Finally, Ziegler et al. (2018) used a bibliometric anal-
ysis to assess the trends within the field of gifted educa-
tion. Their findings suggested that scholars in Western
countries were producing the majority of scholarly
works in the field. This in turn, they reasoned, could
lead to a possible Western-perspective bias within the
field. Taken as a whole, bibliometric analyses have pro-
vided valuable insights into the breadth and general
directions in the field of gifted education.
Purpose
Lewis Terman’s work is controversial within the gifted
education community (Jolly, 2008a; Warne, 2019;
Winkler & Jolly, 2013). Scholars have decried his meth-
odological approach and personal outlook on science
but also acknowledged his contribution to the develop-
ment of the field of gifted education (Jolly, 2008b;
Warne, 2019). Where Terman’s legacy is less understood
is his influence outside of this field. This lack of aware-
ness can lead to biased assessments of his overall schol-
arly legacy.
Our purpose is to explore and quantify the full reach
of Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius within the entirety
of the scholarly community. Doing so will allow scholars
within the field of gifted education to take a more holis-
tic view of Terman’s legacy. To address this purpose, we
used the following research questions to guide our study:
Research Question 1: To what extent has Terman’s
Genetic Studies of Genius reached the field of gifted edu-
cation and the broader research community, as mea-
sured by scholarly citations in academic journals?
Research Question 2: To what extent has the reach of
Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius evolved over time?
Method
Unit of Analysis
Our primary unit of analysis in our descriptive and cita-
tion network analysis was the scholarly journal in which
an article was published. Each selected article needed to
cite one of the volumes of Terman’s Genetic Studies of
Genius (Burks et al., 1930; Cox, 1926; Holahan et al.,
1995; Oden, 1968; Terman, 1926; Terman & Oden,
1947; Terman & Oden, 1959). Academic journals act
as records of their respective fields (De Bellis, 2009). In
this way, examining academic journals through biblio-
metric analysis can provide information about an
Hodges et al. 5

academic field. Within gifted education, scholars have Table 1. Journals by Primary and Secondary Category.
used academic journals as their unit of analysis within
Primary category Secondary category
their bibliometric analyses (Hernández-Torrano &
Kuzhabekova, 2019; Long et al., 2014). The difficulty Biology
in using academic journals to serve as a proxy for a Eugenics
field is in the classification of those journals (De Bellis, Neuroscience
2009). Business
Administration
Marketing
Journal Classification. Classifying journals can present a
Economics
challenge to scholars wishing to conduct a bibliometric Computer Science
analysis on a field (De Bellis, 2009). To aid in our clas- Education
sification of which field a journal belonged to, we used Adult Education
three indices for our classification scheme. The first and Counselors
primary classification index was Elsevier’s index for their Curriculum
Scimago Journal Rank (SJR) indicator. The second was Educational Psychology
the journal classification index used by Worldcat. The Testing
final was a university library index. Three sources were Engineering
Humanities
necessary, as no one index had complete coverage of all
Anthropology
academic journals that contained a work citing Terman’s Art
Genetic Studies of Genius. History
For all academic journals, we assigned two classifiers Language
sets: a major field and a subfield. To classify journals, we Philosophy
first used Elsevier’s classification structure as our prima- Political Science
ry index. For journals not included within Elsevier’s Religion
index or with multiple disparate categorizations, we Sociology
used Worldcat. For journals not appearing in either Mathematics/Statistics
index, we used a university library index. For example, Medicine
Gerontology
the journal Cortex is classified by Elsevier as psychology
Nursing
and medicine and classified as medicine by Worldcat. As Pediatrics
such, we then classified that journal as medicine. Finally, Sports Medicine
if a satisfactory classification is not achieved through Psychiatry
Elsevier and Worldcat, we used the university library Public Health
index. A complete list of journal classifications and asso- Surgery
ciated subfields can be found in Table 1. Psychology
Clinical Psychology
Scope of Search Developmental Psychology
Measurement
We used our research questions to dictate the breadth of Social Psychology
the scope of our search. As such, we limited our citation Multidisciplinarya
collection to works published in academic journals. a
Multidisciplinary journals are those with broad reach across all disciplines.
Academic journals are defined as those written by field For example, Science and Nature are classified by indices as multidisciplinary.
experts (commonly scholars or professionals), whose pri-
mary purpose is to report research, and which are
intended for an academic audience (Cornell University
Library, 2019). We used works published in academic papers or reports as these are outside of the scope of
journals as our primary unit of observation. The associ- our analysis. Finally, we included only scholarly works
ated academic journals wherein those works were pub- that were published in English journals within our cita-
lished were our primary unit of analysis. tion network analysis.
We did not include books, works published in non-
academic journals, or white papers in our analysis. We
Search Engine
chose not to include books due to the difficulty in clas-
sifying books as scholarly or nonscholarly (De Bellis, In our analysis, we used Google Scholar to acquire cita-
2009). We did not include works published in nonaca- tion information for Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius.
demic journals because these are outside of the scope of We selected Google Scholar as our academic search
our analysis. Furthermore, we did not include white engine due to its comprehensive coverage of academic
6 Gifted Child Quarterly 0(0)
literature (Gusenbauer, 2019; Harzing, 2019; Martın-
Martın et al., 2018). In earlier research, Google
Scholar was found to have incomplete coverage of avail-
able scholarly literature (Harzing, 2010). In recent years,
however, the platform’s data collection algorithm has
increased in coverage and sophistication. Current esti-
mates of Google Scholar’s coverage are between 93%
and 96% (Martın-Martın et al., 2018). In contrast, cov-
erage estimates for Scopus (35% to 77%) and Web of
Science (27% to 73%) databases are lower. Martın-
Martın et al. (2018) suggested that Google Scholar is,
in practical application, a super-set of the citation cov-
erage of Scopus and Web of Science. In a recent study,
Harzing (2019b) compared Google Scholar’s coverage
with Scopus and Web of Science and found that
Google Scholar had a 100% coverage rate for academic
journals. In comparison, the coverage rates for Scopus
and Web of Science were dependent on publication year
and country where the journal was located. Gusenbauer
(2019) noted that any present bias against the use of
Google Scholar in bibliometric research likely stems
from early underestimates of its coverage. Given this
evidence, we felt Google Scholar was the most appropri-
ate search engine to locate and collect the full breadth of
authors who had cited Terman’s Genetic Studies of
Genius in their scholarly works.
Collection of Citation Information
To collect the citation information used in our analysis,
we used the program Publish or Perish 6 (Harzing, 2017).
Harzing (2017) developed this software to gather aca-
demic citation information. The program uses a script
to acquire meta-information through page requests by
cycling through pages of search results and downloading
all the meta-information about each citation on each
page. Furthermore, the program incorporates an adap-
tive rate limiter which automatically slows the rate of
page queries. Using an adaptive rate limiter allows a
user to avoid being flagged as a bot by search engines
and subsequently blocked from using those search
engines (Harzing, 2019a). This feature makes Publish
or Perish 6 an attractive program for use in bibliometric
analyses.
Analysis
We followed the methods outlined by previous scholars
in analyzing citation data (Ding, 2010; Hernández-
Torrano & Kuzhabekova, 2019; Long et al., 2014).
This approach uses primarily descriptive analysis to ana-
lyze citation information. Because we examined a cita-
tion network’s singular central node (i.e., Terman’s
Genetic Studies of Genius), wherein the flow of citations
moves in only one direction (i.e., away from that central
node), a simple frequency analysis is appropriate (De
Bellis, 2009). As such, we tabulated frequency counts
of citations. This included overall frequency counts,
overall frequency counts by field and subfield, and fre-
quency counts by field and subfield across time. We used
two additional metrics to assess Terman’s Genetic
Studies of Genius: Five-year composite averages and
expected annual citation growth versus realized
annual citation growth. Finally, we created data visual-
izations that model these frequencies and their variation
over time.
Citation Frequencies. In our analysis, we treated the vol-
umes of Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius as a single
work. If a scholarly work cited more than one volume, in
our analysis, we only counted this as a single scholarly
work rather than as one work for each volume cited.
Five-Year Composite Averages. Composite averages provide
a useful metric for understanding citation rates when
faced with year to year volatility (Goldberg et al.,
2015). With this in mind, we computed 5-year citation
rates by averaging the total number of citations in 5-year
time spans.
Expected Annual Citation Growth Versus Realized Annual
Citation Growth. When analyzing citation rates over
time, the overall growth of scientific literature should
be accounted for (Goldberg et al., 2015). To account
for this growth, we use Larsen and von Ins’ (2010) and
Bornmann and Mutz’s (2015) estimates for the growth
of literature over time. Using these estimates, we calcu-
lated the annual expected number of citations appearing
in academic journals. This was then compared with the
realized annual citation growth over time. This metric
can be used to assess the increase and decline of influence
of a scholarly work (Price de Solla, 1976). For the time
period 2013-2018, there was no estimate available for the
overall growth of scholarly literature. As such, we used
Bornmann and Mutz’s (2015) calculation for 2010-2012
to calculate the expected citation growth for 2013-2018.
Results
Descriptives
In total, using Google Scholar, we collected 3,744 unique
citations of works that had cited Terman’s Genetic
Studies of Genius. Of those, we found 1,499 unique
scholarly works in English language academic journals
that cited Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius. For schol-
arly works that cited more than one volume of Terman’s
Genetic Studies of Genius, we treated these as a single
unique citation. Doing so ensured that we did not inflate
Terman’s citation count. For example, Warne (2019), in
Hodges et al. 7

An Evaluation (and Vindication?) of Lewis Terman: Table 2. Frequency of Journals by Primary and Secondary
What the Father of Gifted Education Can Teach the Category.
21st Century, cites multiple volumes of Terman’s Primary category Secondary category N
Genetic Studies of Genius. In our analysis, this work
was only counted as a single unique citation. Biology 11
Scholarly works citing Terman’s Genetic Studies of Eugenics 6
Genius appeared in 555 unique English-language academ- Neuroscience 3
Business 41
ic journals. Of those unique English-language academic
Administration 28
journals, 11 were biology, 41 were business, 1 was com- Marketing 8
puter science, 194 were education, 2 were engineering, 70 Economics 5
were humanities, 3 were mathematics/statistics, 75 were Computer Science 1
medicine, 145 were psychology, and 13 were multidiscipli- Education 194
nary journals. Multidisciplinary journals were an indexed Adult Education 25
category used to denote journals with broad readership Counselors 3
(e.g., Nature and Science). Of the most common second- Curriculum 35
ary classifications, 69 English-language academic journals Educational Psychology 69
were classified as education–educational psychology Testing 11
Engineering 2
(12.43%) followed by 51 classified as psychology–devel-
Humanities 70
opmental psychology (8.97%). A full frequency count of Anthropology 5
journals by primary and secondary classifications can be Art 3
found in Table 2. In terms of the 1,499 scholarly works, History 8
14 appeared in academic journals classified as Biology, 47 Language 3
in Business, 1 in Computer Science, 811 in Education, 2 in Philosophy 3
Engineering, 99 in Humanities, 120 in Medicine, 378 Political Science 8
in Psychology, 3 in mathematics/statistics, and 24 were Religion 4
in multidisciplinary journals. Of the most common sec- Sociology 34
Mathematics/Statistics 3
ondary classifications, 581 appeared in English-language
Medicine 75
academic journals classified as education–educational
Gerontology 13
psychology (38.76%) followed by 121 classified as psy- Nursing 3
chology–developmental psychology (9.54%). A full fre- Pediatrics 8
quency count of scholarly works by their associated Sports Medicine 2
journal’s primary and secondary classifications can be Psychiatry 26
found in Table 3. Public Health 8
In total, 2,602 authors contributed to 1,499 scholarly Surgery 3
works. Of the 2,602 authors collected, 738 were duplicates. Psychology 145
As such, there was a 71.64% unique authorship rate or Clinical Psychology 23
Developmental Psychology 51
1,864 unique individual authors. Of authors who cited
Measurement 5
Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius in more than one
Social Psychology 23
scholarly work, 5 authors cited Terman’s Genetic Studies Multidisciplinarya 13
of Genius in 10 or more scholarly works and 1 of those
a
authors cited Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius in 42 Multidisciplinary journals are those with broad reach across all disciplines.
For example, Science and Nature are classified by indices as multidisciplinary.
scholarly works. A high rate of unique authorship suggests
that scholarly works are being produced by a wide breadth
of authors as opposed to only a few prolific authors.
citing Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius rather than
Citation Count Across Time citing the work due to its association with a large cita-
During the time frame of publication (1926-1959) of the tion count. Price de Solla (1976) was the first author to
volumes in Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius, the note that every additional citation a paper receives
5-year average annual citation rate increased from 0.8 increases the probability of a successive citation. This
to 12.6. This increased further to a 5-year average annual cascading effect can lead to works being cited due to
citation rate of 26.6 in 1980. Since 1985, Terman’s being highly cited. Figure 1 depicts the overall growth
Genetic Studies of Genius had a 5-year average annual of citations of Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius within
citation rate between 24.6 and 29.4. This stability in cita- scholarly works. For all fields, there is also a stable 5-
tion rate strongly suggests that scholars are intentionally year average annual citation rate. This suggests that the
8 Gifted Child Quarterly 0(0)

Table 3. Scholarly Works by Journal’s Primary and Secondary

1500
Category.
1250
Primary category Secondary category N
1000
Biology 14
Eugenics 9 750

Neuroscience 3 500
Business 47
250
Administration 30
Marketing 8 0
Economics 9 1925 1935 1945 1955 1965 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015
Computer Science 1
Education 811 Figure 1. Overall cumulative citation count of Terman’ Genetic
Adult Education 45 Studies of Genius across all academic journals.
Counselors 3
Curriculum 62
Educational Psychology 581
20
Testing 24
Engineering 2
Humanities 99 15
Anthropology 7
Art 4
10
History 15
Language 3
Philosophy 3 5

Political Science 13
Religion 4 0
Sociology 48 1925 1935 1945 1955 1965 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015

Mathematics/Statistics 3
Medicine 120
Gerontology 37 Figure 2. Cumulative citation count of Terman’ Genetic Studies of
Nursing 3 Genius in Biology journals.
Pediatrics 11
Psychiatry 39
Public Health 10 years after their publication. The second peak begins
Sports Medicine 2 in 1975 and suggests renewed interest in, and influence
Surgery 3 of, Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius.
Psychology 378
Clinical Psychology 32
Developmental Psychology 143
Gifted Education. Scholarly works citing Terman’s Genetic
Measurement 6 Studies of Genius appear in the following gifted educa-
Social Psychology 47 tion journals: Advanced Development, Australasian
Multidisciplinarya 24 Journal of Gifted Education, Creative Child & Adult
a Quarterly, Educating Able Children, Gifted and Talented
Multidisciplinary journals are those with broad reach across all disciplines.
For example, Science and Nature are classified by indices as multidisciplinary. International, Gifted Child Quarterly, Gifted Child
Today, Gifted Children, Gifted Education International,
Gifted International, High Ability Studies (previously
European Journal of High Ability), Journal for the
influence over time of Terman’s Genetic Studies of Education of the Gifted, Journal of Advanced Academics
Genius does not differ across fields. Figures 2 through (previously Journal of Secondary Gifted Education), and
7 showcase the citation growth over time in fields with 10 Roeper Review. The journal Advanced Development was
or more total citations. Finally, Figure 8 shows the classified as “Genius” only in Worldcat and the univer-
actual citation rate versus expected growth given the sity library index whereas other gifted education journals
overall citation increases between 1925 and 2018. This were classified as gifted education specifically. We clas-
figure provides evidence of a dual peak in citation sified this journal as gifted education and as
growth. The initial peak aligns with the predictions of “Education” and “Educational Psychology” as it is
Price de Solla (1976) that scholarly works will begin to described as a journal focused on gifted education
decline in realized citations following on average of 3 (Gifted Development Center, 2019).
Hodges et al. 9

100 150

125
80

100
60
75

40
50

20 25

0
0 1925 1935 1945 1955 1965 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015
1925 1935 1945 1955 1965 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015

Figure 5. Cumulative citation count of Terman’ Genetic Studies of

Figure 3. Cumulative citation count of Terman’ Genetic Studies of Genius in Humanities journals.
Genius in Business journals.

1000 150

125
800

100
600

75
400
50

200
25

0 0
1925 1935 1945 1955 1965 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015 1925 1935 1945 1955 1965 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015

Figure 4. Cumulative citation count of Terman’ Genetic Studies of Figure 6. Cumulative citation count of Terman’ Genetic Studies of
Genius in Education journals. Genius in Medicine journals.

Gifted education is classified as a subfield of

Education and Educational Psychology by the three 500

indices we used in our analysis. Of the 539 unique

scholarly works classified as Education–Educational 400

Psychology, 378 of those unique scholarly works

300
appeared in gifted education academic journals. The
first citation of Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius in
200
a gifted education academic journal appeared in 1961.
In terms of annual citations, gifted education academic
100
journals cite Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius at an
overall 5-year average annual citation rate of 5.33, in 0
comparison with 16.67 for nongifted education aca- 1925 1935 1945 1955 1965 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015

demic journals during the same time frame (1961-

2018). That said, though overall gifted education jour-
nals cite Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius at less than
half the rate of nongifted education journals, they only
comprised 2.10% of academic journals collected. In
other words, clearly Terman’s Genetic Studies of
Genius has had a disproportionately influential effect
on the gifted education literature, as compared with
other academic fields. The overall citation count over
time for gifted education academic journals can be
Figure 7. Cumulative citation count of Terman’ Genetic Studies of
Genius in Psychology journals.
found in Figure 9. A comparison of the citation rates
between gifted education and nongifted education
journals, the overall 5-year average, and the expected
versus realized citation rates can be seen in Figures 10,
11, and 12.
10 Gifted Child Quarterly 0(0)

40 1000

30
800
20
600
10 Gifted
400 Non-Gifted
0

-10 200

-20 0
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
-30

-40
1925 1935 1945 1955 1965 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015 Figure 10. Cumulative citation count of Terman’ Genetic Studies
of Genius in gifted education and nongifted education journals.
Figure 8. Annual citations minus expected citations across all
academic journals: Values greater than zero indicate years where
realized citations were greater than expected citations. 30

25

20

15 Gifted
500
Non-Gifted
10
400 5

0
300 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015

200
Figure 11. 5-Year average annual citation rate of Terman’ Genetic
100 Studies of Genius in gifted education and nongifted education
journals.
0
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Figure 9. Cumulative citation count of Terman’ Genetic Studies of 25

Genius in gifted education journals. 20
15
10
Discussion 5
0 Gifted
Non-Gifted
Terman’s Influence Outside of Gifted Education -5
-10

Despite a disproportionate influence on gifted education -15

-20
research, Terman’s work has had a clear impact on the -25
wider academic landscape. Of all scholarly works that 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

cited Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius, 71.18% of

those were outside of gifted education journals. Genetic
Studies of Genius has been cited in a broad range of
academic journals including those focusing on business,
engineering, and medicine. When discussing the legacy
of Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius, the broad view of
the overall academic community may depart from that
of gifted education. Reviewing publications from fields
beyond gifted education reveals differing perspectives on
Terman’s work. For example, articles published in busi-
ness journals that cite Terman’s Genetic Studies of
Genius, tend to incorporate Terman’s work in discus-
sions of creativity, leadership, and life-long entrepre-
neurship. For example, article titles in this field include
The Creative Individual, Leadership: The Role of the
Exemplar, and Stimulating Lifelong Professional
Growth by Guiding Job Characteristics. In the field of
Figure 12. Annual citations minus expected citations for gifted
education and nongifted education journals: Values greater than
zero indicate years where realized citations were greater than
expected citations.
medical research, Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius
was cited in journals focused on gerontology, nursing,
surgery, pediatrics, and psychiatry (see Table 3).
The nature of Terman’s work makes its application in
the fields of education and psychology most expected.
Unsurprisingly, Genetic Studies of Genius is most fre-
quently cited in academic journals pertaining to those
fields. Within Education, scholarly works in journals
regarding educational psychology cited Terman’s
Genetic Studies of Genius at the greatest rate. Within
Hodges et al.
psychology, academic journals focusing on developmen-
tal psychology had the greatest citation rates.
Terman’s Influence Over Time. The stability of citation rates
over time was the most interesting finding regarding
Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius. Price de Solla
(1976), the founder of bibliometrics, noted that even
for works that obtained exponential growth in citations,
eventually the citation rate over time will decline.
Despite this, as seen in Figure 8, the citation rate of
Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius has largely remained
at pace with overall growth. This provides strong evi-
dence that the influence of Terman’s Genetic Studies of
Genius has remained constant within academia across
time. This stability over time and across fields speaks
to the enduring value of Terman’s seminal work.
Despite the questionability of Terman’s inferred early
motivations (Fallace, 2016; Terman, 1916), and the con-
troversy surrounding his methods (Warne, 2019), schol-
ars within and outside of the field of gifted education
research continue to find influence in his work.
Terman’s Influence in Gerontology. We were surprised by the
influence of Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius within
scholarly works in the field of medicine. Gerontological
studies outnumbered pediatric studies by over 3 to 1 (37
vs. 11). Given that Terman’s study followed individuals
throughout their life span, it is reasonable to expect an
interest from scholars in the field of gerontology. On
closer examination, there appeared to be two primary
periods of citation within this field. The first occurred
between 1962 and 1979 and followed the posthumous
publication of the fifth volume of Terman’s Genetic
Studies of Genius. The second period occurred between
1994 and 2004. Interestingly, nearly 50% of the total
citations in gerontology occurred in articles published
from 1994 to 2004. A closer review of contributions
citing Terman’s work during these time periods indicates
that the 1962-1979 time period had very few single-
author accounts for citations. In contrast, the 1994-
2004 growth in citation rate was largely due to two
contributions: those made by Carole Holahan in her
work surrounding Holahan et al. (1995), and the succes-
sive scholars who cited Holahan et al. (1995). This sug-
gests that although Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius
has influenced the field of gerontology, this impact
should be understood in the context that much of the
influence is indicated by work from a single author and
the publication of Holahan et al. (1995).
Terman’s Influence Within Gifted Education
As the founding “father” of the field of gifted education,
it is unsurprising that approximately 28.82% of total
citations were identified within gifted education journals.
11
These references may include historical references to
Terman’s work as it relates to gifted individuals over
time or to the field as a whole; may consider his specific
contributions to the understanding of intelligence; or
may provide critical commentary regarding his methods,
interpretations of data focused heavily on heredity and
genetics, and connections to the eugenics movement.
Examining the figure showing the expected annual cita-
tion gain versus its realized gain provides evidence that
the influence cycle for Terman’s Genetic Studies of
Genius has behaved as Price de Solla (1976) would the-
orize. The study peaked in citation increase and then has
declined since. Where Terman’s Genetic Studies of
Genius differs from Price’s predictions is that its peak
extended beyond 3 years after the final publication
date of the fifth volume. The increases in citations in
the mid-1970s to 1990s beyond what would be expected
is interesting when we also consider the historical con-
text of gifted education.
Shortly after the Marland (1972) report, Congress
established the 1974 Equal Educational Opportunity
Act promoting the concept of academic potential in all
peoples. In 1988, Congress also passed the Jacob Javits
Gifted and Talented Students Education Act (Javits) to
fund gifted and talented development in American
schools, and a National Research Center devoted to
research activities in gifted education. The federal pub-
lications, A Nation at Risk (1983) and National
Excellence: A Case For Developing America’s Talent
(1993) in this time period also “highlighted the missed
opportunities to identify and serve gifted students
nationally. . . . In turn, a call was made for additional
research and programming in the field of gifted educa-
tion” (NAGC, n.d.). Despite these efforts to improve
gifted education through increased funding, No Child
Left Behind in 2001 halted progress toward excellence
and imperiled the educational progress of high-ability
students from low-income backgrounds, English learn-
ers, and other historically underserved students, by nar-
rowing the legislative focus to children reaching
minimum proficiency levels (Jolly & Robins, 2016), per-
haps providing an alternative explanation for the
lower than expected citations observed from the late
1990s to 2008.
Aside from the historical explanations for the rise and
then decline of influence, there is also the natural life
cycle of a scholarly work as described by Price de Solla
(1976). Works decline in influence due not only to
advances in knowledge but also because citing scholars
leave the field. In our findings, Julian Stanley and John
Feldhusen were in the top 5% of scholars who cited
Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius and who published
in gifted education journals; both scholars have departed
the field of gifted education. As leading scholars leave a
field, fields tend to move in alternative directions.
12
Limitations
The first limitation is that we used Google Scholar as our
primary search engine to gather citation information.
Since Terman’s studies were primarily published in the
early portion of the 20th century, other scholarly data-
bases (e.g., Web of Science or Scopus) will not compre-
hensively survey the breadth of citations (Harzing,
2010). Google Scholar includes a wider breadth of schol-
arly articles which tends to benefit the social science and
humanities disciplines (Harzing, 2010). Where Google
Scholar can be deficient is in how its collects citations.
Google scholar uses a web crawling algorithm to collect
meta-information about scholarly works (Beel & Gipp,
2009). Website creators can insert code within their web-
sites that requests that web crawlers not collect informa-
tion from their website. This request is optional, but
Google Scholar respects this request and does not collect
information from these websites (Harzing, 2016). As
such, this can lead to a possible noncomprehensive
survey of the literature when assessing citation
information.
A second limitation is our use of keywords to catego-
rize journals. We used multiple indices (Worldcat, a uni-
versity library, and Scimago) to categorize the journals
within our studies. Despite this, no index is comprehen-
sive (De Bellis, 2009). This is compounded by the fact
that this study includes data from 98 years’ worth of
citation information. It is possible that journals included
in this study were not always associated with the cate-
gorization assigned to them by us in our analysis. That
said, we believe that our survey of Terman’s citation
network analysis is comprehensive enough such that
any miscategorization is unlikely to influence the conclu-
sions drawn from our analysis.
A third methodological limitation of our analysis is
the inability to directly compare Terman’s studies with
other seminal articles in the field of gifted education. In
our analysis, we use Larsen and von Ins’ (2010) and
Bornmann and Mutz’s (2015) benchmarks to compare
how Terman’s studies might compare with an article
with similar citations. That said, we understand that
this method is qualitatively different than a direct com-
parison with seminal articles in the field of gifted
education.
A final methodological limitation of our analysis was
the elimination of journals without associated keywords.
Not all journals were catalogued in our three bibliograph-
ic indices. These journals were largely open-access jour-
nals from countries outside of the United States and
Canada. For example, the journal International Journal
of Developmental and Educational Psychology is the
recently created open access journal for Association of
Developmental and Educational Psychology for
Children, Youth, Elderly and Disabled people, a
Gifted Child Quarterly 0(0)
Spanish psychological organization. Not all international
open-access journals without keywords were published
through reputable international organizations. For exam-
ple, the journal International Journal of Home Science is an
online open access journal that appears in the successor of
Beall’s predatory journal list (“List of Predatory
Journals,” 2019). Regardless, this suggests that our anal-
ysis likely has issues with citation coverage. That said, we
do not believe that this issue of coverage undermines the
overall conclusions from our analysis.
Conclusion
His seminal publications Measurement of Intelligence
and multivolume Genetic Studies of Genius, and multiple
citations related to his findings, have demonstrated
Terman’s influence and lasting legacy to the field of
gifted education. As can be seen from this study, his
influence extends past gifted education into the broader
fields of education, psychology, business and medicine.
Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius was and remains an
important and influential work in academia and beyond.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Editors’ Note
This paper was originally accepted for publication by Jennifer
L. Jolly and Russell T. Warne in their role as guest editors for a
special issue, The Terman Longitudinal Study: A Century of
Findings, Questions, and Controversy, which was terminated
by NAGC.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
ORCID iDs
Jaret Hodges https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4427-5247
Rachel U. Mun https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5455-4522
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Author Biographies
Jaret Hodges is an assistant professor at the University
of North Texas in Educational Psychology. His research
interests are in equity, policy, and rurality in gifted
education.
Rachel U. Mun is an assistant professor at the University
of North Texas in Educational Psychology. She received
her PhD in Education, Learning Sciences and Human
Development from the University of Washington. She
was also a postdoctoral research associate at the
University of Connecticut with the National Center for
15
Research on Gifted Education conducting research on
identifying and serving underrepresented gifted learners.
Her research interests are two tiered and best described
as an intersection between culture, gifted education, and
socioemotional well-being. At the micro-level, she
explores socioemotional development and decision
making for high-ability students (emphasis on immi-
grants) within family, peer, and academic contexts with
the goal to promote well-being. At the macro-level, she
examines ways to improve equitable identification and
services for K-12 high-ability learners from diverse pop-
ulations. She has published a variety of articles in gifted
education and most recently received the NAGC 2017
doctoral dissertation award (first place).
Mattie E. Oveross is currently a PhD candidate at the
University of North Texas. She is pursuing her PhD in
Educational Psychology with a concentration in Gifted
and Talented Education. She currently serves in multiple
leadership roles for the National Association for Gifted
Children and presents regularly on topics of gifted edu-
cation. Her current areas of research include creativity
studies, early childhood gifted education, and gifted and
talented programming.
Jessica K. Ottwein is a doctoral student at the University
of North Texas where she studies educational psycholo-
gy and gifted and talented education. Her research inter-
ests center on furthering equitable access to advanced
learning opportunities for students from traditionally
underrepresented populations. She is particularly inter-
ested in intersectionality and its role in the development
of academic self-beliefs, motivation, and career
aspirations.
Manuscript received: September 30, 2019; Final revision
received: April 7, 2020; Accepted: April 25, 2020