Creative self-efficacy is a type of individual creative self-belief, which is an important predictor of creative activities and achievements. For gifted children who have high creative potential, the influencing factors of their creative self-efficacy need to be further explored. This study aimed to explore the relationship between gender, emotional intelligence, self-esteem, and creative self-efficacy in gifted children, with special attention on the mediating role of self-esteem and the moderating role of gender in the relationship between emotional intelligence and creative self-efficacy. Participants in this study included 226 gifted students aged 10–13 (135 boys and 91 girls) from experimental classrooms designed for gifted students in North China. The creative self-efficacy scale (CSE), the emotional intelligence scale (EIS), and the self-esteem scale (SES) were tested. The statistical results indicate that: (1) emotional intelligence significantly positively predicted creative self-efficacy in gifted children; (2) self-esteem partially mediated the link between emotional intelligence and creative self-efficacy; and (3) gender acted as a moderator for the mediation model, in which self-esteem played a complete mediating role in gifted boys, while the mediating role of self-esteem in gifted girls was not significant. The results of this study reveal the influential mechanism of creative self-efficacy in gifted children of different genders and may provide further implications for promoting the creative potential of gifted children.

The present study aimed to examine whether intellectually gifted children had better planning skills than their chronological-age controls and what processing skills may explain these differences. A total of 35 intellectually gifted Chinese children (25 boys and 10 girls; M_age = 12.77 years) and 39 chronological-age controls (27 boys and 12 girls; M_age = 12.89 years) participated in this study. They were assessed on three measures of operational planning (Planned Codes, Planned Connections, and Planned Search), on a measure of action planning (Crack the Code), and on measures of processing speed, working memory, and attention. Results of analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed first that the two groups differed in Crack the Code (accuracy and first move time) and in Planned Connections. Whereas processing speed explained the group differences in Planned Connections, none of the processing skills were able to eliminate the group differences in Crack the Code. Taken together, these findings suggest that gifted children have better action planning, which allows them to perform better than controls in tasks that require complex problem solving and evaluation of different scenarios and solutions.

Aurora Battery is a corresponding test of successful intelligence. This study aims to examine the factorial structure of the Chinese version of Aurora Battery and to investigate its internal consistency and validity, as well as to discover the developmental features of Chinese students. A total number of 2007 students were recruited from 13 schools across eastern, central, and western China, ranging from 4th to 8th grade (mean age = 12.29 years) and among them, 43.9% are girls. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to examine the factorial structure. Among the tested models, a second-order factor model, in which the three ability factors serve as indicators of a general factor, provided an acceptable model fit to the data. Moreover, measurement invariance across gender and grades were supported, which suggests the mean scores of analytical, creative, and practical abilities are comparable in this research. The criterion-related validity analysis suggests that the battery and its three subscales have good criterion validity. The scale reliability analysis shows that the Cronbach’s alpha and the McDonald’s omega value of the whole test were .84 and .87, respectively, indicating the scale’s internal reliability is good. For ability differences among grades, students’ analytical and practical abilities increase across all grades, while creativity presents an upward trend from grade 4 to 6, followed by a downward trend from grade 6 to 7, and an increase from grade 7 to 8. Female students outperform male students on both analytical and creative ability, while with no obvious difference on practical abilities.