What is Aurora?

AURORA is an ongoing research project whose goal is to address the diverse
nature of students’ abilities by assessing intelligence using Dr. Robert
Sternberg’s Theory of Successful Intelligence. This theory recognizes creative
and practical skills as being as important as the traditionally tested-for
analytical/memory skills.

Sternberg’s theory has been validated through extensive research spanning a
period of about 20 years. Various assessments have been based on it, including
supplements to the SATs (for The Rainbow Project), augmented Advanced
Placement exams in Psychology and Statistics, and high-level professional
exams, such as those for admission to business schools.

What is the Aurora Battery?

The Aurora Battery is an augmented assessment of giftedness. Composed of
multiple modules— including a group administered paper and pencil assessment,
a parent interview, a teacher rating scale, and an observation schedule— it
measures abilities in the areas of memory, analytical, creative and practical
thinking, which distinguishes it from the traditional assessments, which almost
exclusively address only analytical and memory skills.

Aurora’s purpose is to provide an accurate, multifaceted view of a child’s
intellectual gifts, as expressed through the range of abilities described above. By
measuring this augmented range of skills, intellectual strengths that might not
have been apparent through conventional testing can be detected. In addition,
traditionally underidentified gifts of minority children may be discerned, as well as
those of children with learning disabilities who have strengths in previously
unexamined domains.

The Aurora Battery is designed to meet the needs of individual parents who are
concerned with their children’s intellectual performance, teachers and counselors
who wish to identify gifted students, and schools or school systems attempting to
identify gifted children among their student body.