A Study of Pre-service Elementary Teacher's Belief on Science Gifted Education

초등예비교사들의 과학영재교육에 대한 신념 연구

The purpose of this work is to investigate pre-service elementary teachers' belief in science gifted education. To do that, from September to November 2012, this research had been conducted with 42 students who were in the third year of P University of Education. The conclusions of this work are presented as follows: First, the pre-service elementary teachers considered exploration ability to be the most important talent for the gifted students in science, and chose task commitment as the next most important. They regarded intelligent ability and leadership ability as the relatively less important. Secondly, regarding the most important tool in choosing scientifically gifted students, the pre-service elementary teachers preferred creativity test. It was found that they considered the intelligence test and academic achievements, which require intelligent ability, to be the less important. Thirdly, regarding the special knowledge related to science gifted education, the pre-service elementary teachers considered pedagogical knowledge about the gifted to be the most important. Fourthly, regarding a class type for gifted students in science, the pre-service elementary teachers most preferred project learning. Project learning is a learning method in which students choose an interesting problem and solve the problem in cooperation with group members. It is the most widely used exploration class in gifted education. It is in the same context as the result that exploration ability is the most important factor to elementary gifted students in science. This work revealed that, with regard to a talent for the gifted in science, judgment of the gifted in science and science gifted education, the potential ability and affective ability of gifted students are considered to be more important than their intelligent ability. Therefore, it was analyzed that pre-service elementary teachers' belief in the gifted students in science is almost consistent with the recent trend of gifted education.