Abstract
Reflecting the recent trends and needs of gifted education, this study set out to compare and analyze mathematically gifted elementary students and common students in self-efficacy and career attitude maturity, understand the characteristics of the former, and provide assistance for career education for both the groups. The subjects include 237 mathematically gifted elementary students and 221 common students in D Metropolitan City. The research findings were as follows: First, mathematically gifted elementary students turned out to have higher self-efficacy than common students at the significance level of .01 in the three self-efficacy subfactors, namely confidence, self-regulated efficacy, and task difficulty preference. The findings indicate that mathematically gifted elementary students have much confidence in themselves and strong faith in themselves, thus forming a habit of preferring a relatively high-level task by taking self-management and task difficulty into proper consideration. Second, mathematically gifted elementary students showed higher overall career attitude maturity than common students. There was significant difference at the significance level of .01 in decisiveness and preparedness between the two groups and significant difference at the significance level of .05 in assertiveness. However, there was no statistically significant difference in purposefulness and independence between the two groups. Finally, there were positive correlations at the significance level of .01 between all the subfactors of self-efficacy and those of career attitude maturity in all the subjects except for self-regulated efficacy and purposefulness, between which there were positive correlations at the significance level of .05. The mathematically gifted elementary students showed positive correlations between more subfactors of self-efficacy and career attitude maturity than common students. Given those findings, it is necessary to take differences in self-efficacy and career attitude maturity between mathematically gifted elementary students and common students into account when organizing and running a curriculum. The findings confirm the importance of providing students with various experiences fit for them and point to a need for helping mathematically gifted elementary students maintain a high level of self-efficacy and guiding them through career education with more appropriate career attitude maturity improvement programs.
본 연구의 목적은 초등수학영재들과 일반학생들 사이의 자기효능감과 진로태도성숙을 비교분석 함으로써 초등수학영재의 특성을 이해하며, 초등수학영재와 일반학생의 진로교육에 도움을 주는 것이다. 연구 대상은 D광역시 소재의 대학영재교육원, 교육청 영재교육원, 초등학교 영재학급의 초등수학영재 237명(5학년 98명, 6학년 139명)과 D광역시 소재의 영재교육 대상학생, 특수아를 제외한 일반학생 221명(5학년 92명, 6학년 129명)이다. 연구 결과 초등수학영재가 일반학생보다 자기효능감이 높게 나타났다. 이는 초등수학영재가 자기 자신에 대한 자신감이 크고, 스스로에 대한 신념이 강하며, 그로 인해 자기 관리 및 과제의 난이도를 적절히 배려하여 비교적 높은 수준의 과제를 선호하는 등의 습관이 형성되어 있음을 알 수 있다. 또한 초등수학영재의 전체적인 진로태도성숙이 일반학생보다 높게 나타났다. 특히 하위요인 중 결정성, 준비성에서는 p< .01 수준에서 두 집단 간 유의미한 차이를 보였으며, 확신성에서는 p< .05 수준에서 유의미한 차이를 나타냈다. 또한 초등수학영재와 일반학생 모두 자기효능감이 높을수록 진로태도성숙이 높은 것으로 나타났다. 이것은 수학영재를 위한 교육과정은 물론 일반교육과정에서도 자기효능감과 진로태도성숙을 향상시킬 수 있는 교육 프로그램이 개발되어야 함을 시사하는 것이라 볼 수 있다.