• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.463-477
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to investigate the conceptions toward ICT in students who are currently enrolled in giftedness in invention classes. A total of 147 students at the junior and high school level responded to a 33 item questionnaire. Results show that these students consider ICT as very important and that it will become more important in the future. They also indicated that they frequently use ICT in their studies and also in their work. But a majority of the students considered their level of expertise in the ICT area as 'moderate', and their application of the programs as 'elementary'. Thus it can be assumed that these students did not have enough opportunity to learn ICT related skills. These students also expressed the desire to receive systematic instructions in the ICT area beginning from simple application to program development. The students thought that ICT skills need to be incorporated into the invention education to lead to better inventions. Considering the fact that the ICT area is becoming increasingly important and that Korea is considered a representative country in ICT, the reality of ICT education does not stand up to expectations, and the creative software development capacity is relatively low. Therefore, there is a need to incorporate ICT contents into the education for the giftedness in invention classes, and also to form connections with software development and invention education.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.289-312
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is to develop academic resilience scale for gifted youth. We extracted the pilot questionnaire of 101 items from open-ended questions with 178 scientifically gifted students and literature review. Item analysis and exploratory factor analysis were also carried out with data of 240 gifted youth. Finally, 11 factors from which 42 items were extracted and validated through the confirmatory factor analysis involving 444 gifted youth throughout the nation. The names of the extracted factors were sense of purpose, self-understanding, educational aspirations, academic self-regulation, task commitment, attribution for success (ability), attribution for success (effort), the interpersonal relationship (friend), the interpersonal relationship (parent), the interpersonal relationship(teacher), and optimism. The results show that all of the path coefficient and construct reliability, AVE (Average Variance Extracted), and coefficient of determination were all acceptable. The result of the study indicated that Academic Resilience Scale for Gifted Youth was positively and significantly correlated with School Adaptation Scale and Resilience Scale. However it was negatively correlated with Academic Burnout Scale, and it was statistically significant. Thus, Academic Resilience Scale for Gifted Youth demonstrated satisfactory internal validity and external validity. The results of the present study suggests theoretical and practical implications of the newly developed Academic Resilience Scale for Gifted Youth.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.123-139
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• 2011

The research paid attention to the fact that top 10% high achievers of girls in high schools are not equally provided with opportunities for science gifted education in Korea. For this reason, the research examined gender differences in science achievement and science affective domain through employing PISA 2006 science achievement test and survey of science affective domains. The research subjects of 132 students as top 10% high achievers extracted from those 1,409 students who were nationwidely sampled and responded to the science achievement test and science affective domain survey in July 2008. The responses by 132 students of top 10% high achievers were analyzed. The findings revealed that there is no significant difference of science achievement and most items of science affective domain survey between girls and boys of top 10% population in high schools. Further, it was indicated that top 10% high achieving girls have interest, self-concept, self-efficacy, future job aspiration in science as high as boys. In conclusions, further attentions to provide more opportunities of science gifted education for girls are called for.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.629-648
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• 2015

This study was to develop new psychological capital scale for high school students attending a technical high school specialized in invention and patent education, and to examine validity and reliability of the new psychological capital scale. Of the 400 high school students attending a technical a technical high school specialized in invention and patent education in a Province, Korea, 388 completed and returned the questionnaires. PCQ (Psychological Capital Questionnaire)-24 items version was modified to measure psychological capital of them. By conducting confirmatory factor analysis, the final 19 items were selected. The Cronbach's alphas of the final version were ranged from .723 to .871. Convergent validity was supported through correlations among the sub-scales of the final version of PCQ, creative intelligence, creativity, and academic efficacy. Criterion-related validity was supported by mean differences on 4 sub-scales of psychological capital (i.e., self-efficacy, hope, resilience, and optimism) between two groups (i.e., prize-winning experiences for invention or academic achievement).

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.595-610
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• 2011

It is hard to understand the coexistence of giftedness and disorder in an individual, but the twice-exceptional is widely recognized now. Gifted autistic spectrum disorder is one of its subtypes in which giftedness exists with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) simultaneously. Like other constructs including giftedness, the nature of gifted ASD has not been understood in a fundamental and wholistic manner. This paper suggests a cognitive mechanism of gifted ASD based on the integrated model of human abilities(Song, 2009; Song & Porath, 2005), which explains how giftedness coexists with ASD and interacts with each other, producing the characteristics of gifted individuals with ASD. According to the suggested mechanism, the excessive growth of mental spaces in the brain may cause ASD. The over-grown mental spaces result in excessively strong short-term sensory memory and better facility of processing, promoting internal cognitive activities on one hand, but relative lack of cognitive activities in the real world space results in ASD symptoms on the other hand. The cognitive structure of gifted ASD students also contributes to the presentation of giftedness in specific domains. This study suggests that gifted individuals with ASD need to be discouraged from fully engaging in domains they are interested in or the most confident of, rather to be encouraged to invest their giftedness to overcome their ASD symptoms. This study also provides new perspectives on theoretical and educational approaches for gifted ASD.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.567-592
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to investigate effective teaching and learning method for teaching decision-making on Socio-Scientific-Issues(SSI) in science classroom. So we carried out new teaching and learning trial for decision-making about Global Warming issues. Our new trial focused on self-directed and cooperative learning in decision-making about SSI. And our participants were science gifted or science high-achieved students in middle school. We analysed students' written decision-making of the last process in our new trial. We can find our instruction made progress in informed decision-making, structure of argumentation, reflective thinking stage, using the scientific information and understanding of the nature of science. As a result, self-directed and cooperative learning in decision-making on SSI leads students to the meaningful decision-making scientifically.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.353-380
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• 2009

The significant reason for studying computer science lies in the efficient resolution of various problems which can arise in actual life. Consequently, algorithm education is very important in the computer science and plays a great part in helping to enhance the creative ability to solve problems and to improve the programming ability. However, the current algorithm education at an computer science educational institute for the gifted has inadequate systematic quality and is only treated as a part of programming education. From this perspective, this paper carried out following studies in order to design the algorithm education for elementary computer science prodigies. First, the core educational contents was selected by extracting the common elements from existing books related to algorithm education, common study contents on algorithm lesson websites and the study area of ACM's computer algorithm. Second, using the development criteria and selected educational contents, the educational theme for the If weeks load was set. Additionally, the algorithm educational contents were designed for the elementary computer science prodigy based on such theme. Third, the activity site for the use of prodigy educational institute was developed with the background in the educational contents for the elementary computer science prodigy. Fourth, the Delphi analysis technique was used to verify the appropriateness of contents and activity site developed in this paper. It was carried out in 2 separate processes where the first process verified the design of educational contents, and the second process verified the appropriateness of developed activity site.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.193-214
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• 2006

This study is focused on the trends in education and polices for women in Korea. First, historical background of education for women in Korea revealed that a biased view of education for women was deeply rooted. Next, several findings such as international comparison of performance on the PISA, TIMSS, and National Assessment including gender differences especially in Mathematical and Science performance were analyzed. In international assessments, female students perform better in reading literacy, but still fall behind male students in mathematical and scientific literacy, and the gap between the genders are wider than most OECD countries. The change in status of women in contemporary Korea is examined focusing on educational system and women's educational and vocational performance, etc. Additionally, policies planned by Ministry of Science and Technology which show the many execution plans for training and supporting female professionals were presented. Finally, possible reasons for gender differences in educational performance is examined and some suggestions are provided to reduce the gender gap in mathematical and scientific literacy of Korean students.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.469-491
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• 2015

The present study investigated the inhibition mechanisms of gifted children, which is one of the main executive functions in human cognitive system. The inhibition process was subdivided into cognitive and emotion aspects in order to examine the interplay between these two aspects with respect to inhibition processing. In Experiment 1, word-color Stroop task was used to study the cognitive inhibition process of 100 gifted children(Gender: 62 males, 38 females; Academic grade: 46 Elementary school students, 54 Secondary school students). In addition, emotional Stroop task was utilized in Experiment 2 to examine the effect of emotional component during cognitive inhibition process. Results revealed a significant cognitive cost (i.e., word-color Stroop effect) when participants had to withhold automatic response during cognitive inhibition task in Experiment 1. Such cognitive cost was reduced as the chronological age of the participants increased, with no difference in gender. The results in Experiment 2 showed no significant emotional inhibition cost (i.e., emotional Stroop effect) during cognitive inhibition task, and there was no effect of gender nor age. This suggests that the emotional component conveyed in words did not lead to cognitive bias effects. This study proposes that the cognitive and emotional inhibition processes are seemingly independent mechanisms that engage in complex interactions during inhibition processing of behavioral response.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.1001-1024
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• 2014

The purpose of the study is to explore the experiences and meaning of the AP (Advanced Placement) at the specialized school for the highly gifted through the in-depth interview with 39 college students who had graduated from the specialized schools with the AP experiences. It is expected that the AP will be expanded to the students at the Science High Schools from the year of 2015, however, there has been no study to examine the realities of the AP in-depth especially through the voices of the AP participants. Students have taken 8 required and/or selective courses as AP in average. Students usually start to take AP from the second year of the specialized school for the highly gifted, but some start from the first year through the placement test. Numbers of available AP courses vary by subjects, but relatively more courses open in the areas of math and physics. Students' opinions regarding the AP were quite positive. Specifically, the high quality of the AP class and energetic interaction between student and teacher compared to the college classes were preferred by the students. However, it was controversial whether C+ is enough for the pass condition of the AP. Students were using the shortened time by AP in diverse ways, such as early graduation, double majors, exchange students, individual researches, and so on. Most of all, they tried to search for their career interests through the AP experiences. In closing, the present study provides some advices and future directions for the better AP management, including the improvement of administrative system between schools for the gifted and the universities, and the expansion of the number of university which approves the AP system.