Topology and Geometry for Small Sample Sizes: An Application to Research on the Profoundly Gifted
This study aims to confirm prior findings on the usefulness of topological data analysis (TDA) in the analysis of small samples, particularly focused on cohorts of profoundly gifted students, as well as explore the use of TDA-based regression methods for statistical modeling with small samples. A subset of the Gross sample is analyzed through supervised and unsupervised methods, including 16 and 17 individuals, respectively. Unsupervised learning confirmed prior results suggesting that evenly gifted and unevenly gifted subpopulations fundamentally differ. Supervised learning focused on predicting graduate school attendance and awards earned during undergraduate studies, and TDA-based logistic regression models were compared with more traditional machine learning models for logistic regression. Results suggest 1) that TDA-based methods are capable of handing small samples and seem more robust to the issues that arise in small samples than other machine learning methods and 2) that early childhood achievement scores and several factors related to childhood education interventions (such as early entry and radical acceleration) play a role in predicting key educational and professional achievements in adulthood. Possible new directions from this work include the use of TDA-based tools in the analysis of rare cohorts thus-far relegated to qualitative analytics or case studies, as well as potential exploration of early educational factors and adult-level achievement in larger populations of the profoundly gifted, particularly within the Study of Exceptional Talent and Talent Identification Program cohorts.