• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.575-596
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• 2012

Students' perception on a science program for gifted was investigated. The whole program was designed in consistency and integrity based on the Autonomous Learner Model suggested by Betts & Kercher(1999). 7th, 8th and 9th grade students were enrolled in this program, offered by G Education Institute for Gifted(GEI) located in Seoul. A survey was done to ask students' perception regarding the effect of the program. The survey consisted of statements about the expected effects of the program and students were asked if they agreed with the statements. Most students strongly agreed that GEI's program has positive effects. Students replied that they learned useful and interesting science contents, enjoyed meaningful experience of cooperating with members in small groups, and were challenged by the inquiry tasks. They recognized that they were being trained to become autonomous learners. They also said that their choices and decisions were respected, which resulted in positive effects on their ability to negotiate or to inquire actively. These implies that Autonomous Learner Model had been successfully applied. Although it was not clear autonomy of students was fully grown, the possibility of becoming an autonomous learner was evident. Satisfaction level is higher for the older students, implying that the integrity in the program gave accumulating effect. Students response showed that three sub-programs of GEI, the classes of each subject, conference at the end of the year and autonomous learner training played equally important role for students to learn the process of scientific inquiry and autonomous learning. This was a positive sign that the strategies for scientific inquiry and autonomous learning were embedded and integrated deeply in the program. The results of current research suggests that the integrity of a program based on a specific education model for the gifted could provide better education environment for the gifted students.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.552-563
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is to investigate the students' perception of the learning support system of Korea Science Academy and to propose improvements to it. The impact of the science learning support system on 129 gifted students in Korea Science Academy (KSA) was estimated by using Likert-type items and the multiple-choice method approach for more comprehensive evaluation. The results of our investigation are as follows: First, the learning support system of KSA appears globally useful to the students. The list of educational usefulness to the students comprises, in the decreasing order of utility, classroom work, Internet, lab activities, reading rooms, library, research meetings and clubs, academic advisors (AA), SAF (Science Academy Fair), e-learning system, and finally colloquia by invited lecturers. Second, what the gifted students hope for in the realm of learning support from KSA are learning guides by subject teachers, presentation skill program, the constructions of on/off-line learning communities, etc. It seems that the results of this study would be helpful in improving the learning support system, and will provide useful information for planning the direction of future science-gifted education programs at the high-school level.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.396-404
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• 2010

This study aimed to investigate a perception of teachers engaged in special education for scientifically gifted regarding nature of science and identify attitudes toward teaching nature of science. The sample of this study consists of 122 science teachers who are teaching or taught students attending gifted classes of any primary school in Korea and any gifted education center of every District Office of Education. We made a partial amendment of a VOSE that was developed by Chen(2006) and then used. We tested their perception and attitudes in regard to nature of science. In terms of nature of science, we devide it into 7 sub-areas to analyse. For attitudes toward teaching nature of science, we investigate and analyse following 5 sub-areas; tentativeness of scientific knowledge, nature of observation, scientific methods, theories and laws and subjectivity and objectivity. The result showed that the generally teachers have a desirable recognitions about a nature of science. For attitudes toward teaching nature of science, the teachers showed that they have positive attitudes. However between degrees of teachers' recognition about a nature of science and attitudes toward teaching nature of science showed a low correlation. To increase their understanding of nature of science and develop attitudes toward teaching nature of science, there should be more training time for the teachers and training contents also should be changed. In addition, we hope that this study contribute to develop contents and direction of training for the teachers as a basic reference.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.201-207
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• 1997

This study was performed to survey the achievements in problem solving by the inquiring experiment, which was done by the superior group in the traditional cocepts-centered written tests. The purpose of this study was to identify characteristics of inquiring experimental assessment by analyzing differences between concepts-centered written and inquiring experimental tests. The subjects of this study was 211 applicants. They are the superior group of the 9th grade students, and score in the top 1% of total achievements percentage in school. They also have passed the primary entrance examination. The inquiring experimental test was developed according to the curriculum in school, and is composed of 5 subcategories: problem-perception and formulating hypothesis, designing an experiment, carring out an experiment, recording data and drawing conculsion, and generalizing conculsions and communicaton. The checklists of each subcategory were made and testing methods were divided into observation and report. The major results of this study are as follows: 1. The achievements in each subcategory of inquiring experimental performance were very low in the superior group who took the concepts-centered written tests. 2. The results of factor and correlation analyses in this study confirmed the abilities measured by inquiring experimental assessment differed from abilities measured by existing tests. These results indicated that even students who achieved high in scientific knowledge, these abilities were not automatically transformed inquiry process which many other abilities were integrated into. Therefore, problem solving ability requires integrated abilities which are fostered by inquiring experimental tasks. This suggests that new instrument for assessment must be developed to measure integrating ability especially where scientifically gifted students are selected, or where entrance examinations to the science schools are administered.