• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.729-755
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• 2012

As an effort to understand alienated gifted students, we investigated learning characteristics and learning tactics of a scientifically gifted student with economic difficulty and physical disadvantage. The student we studied is attending the Saturday Physics Class which is an after school science activity offered by our university. We adopted techniques of qualitative case study. Participant observation was carried out at the field and the interview was done with the participant, his mother, and his teacher of 5th grade. Field documents and self-reports were used to understand the student synthetically. As a result, learning characteristics of the participant could be summarized as a spontaneous learning which originated from the internal motivation and struggle for learning to overcome the sense of inferiority and isolation from the peers. The participant adopted a strategic method for learning to satisfy his learning desire given the circumstance of socioeconomic and physical disadvantage: the three tactics we found were various learning routes, meta-cognitive ability and fervent response.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.95-117
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to investigate what image and perception of the engineering scientifically gifted students have. For this, we conducted a survey of 182 students who are freshman or sophomore in science high schools. First, we analyzed the image of the engineering and science based on the survey. Second, we investigated the perception of the engineering and the need for engineering education. Third, we analyzed the attitude toward the engineering. The result of this study is as follow. We found that they perceived engineering positively as much as that they gave an affirmative answers to the most of questions about engineering and field of engineering. Even though engineering careers and fields of career are very important particularly for gifted students, they have not only lack of recognition and negative image of engineering but also a misconception. It seems to be due to the lack of opportunities for engineering education. In addition, gifted students have meaningful differences according to gender, grade level, future career group. In conclusion, compared to the importance of engineering for them, the image and perception and attitude of the engineering gifted students have were examined to be very lacking.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.679-702
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• 2012

Values can be regarded as an important factor which acts as an indicator showing each person's individual path of life. many researchers have suggested that values function as standards that guide thought and action. Values lead us to take particular positions on social issues and they predispose us to favor one perspective over another. Adolescence is an important period for the establishment of one's values. The values established during such a period become an important factor determining one's right personality and contents of life. In particular, it is important to take a study about the values possessed by gifted and talented children in Korea. There have been several researches regarding the cognitive and affective characteristics of gifted and talented learners in Korea. However, there has not been any research regarding their values in life. This study investigates the characteristics of values shown by 468 high-school students from two special schools for gifted students by using Schwartz's Value Survey Scale which is consisted of 57 value categories and 10 value types. According to the results of this study, the students from the special high-school for gifted children tend to promote such value types as 'autonomy' and 'stimulation' the most. Conversely, the same students tend to deny or ignore such value types as 'power' and 'tradition'. This study provides basic data regarding the values of gifted and talented students as the first research of its kind targeting gifted students in Korea. It has an important meaning for the research related to the characteristics shown by gifted students in Korea.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.25 no.spc5
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• pp.485-494
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• 2007

The aims of this study were to investigate the differences of the proportion of misconceptions and the reasons for selecting responses related to questions about small living things between talented and average students. The study subjects were made up of three groups. They were a class of 37 talented elementary students in science attending J National University of Education, a class of 37 talented students in science attending J City Office of Education, and a class of 33 average students attending J City. A questionnaire was composed of 20 test questions for examination of concepts related to small living things. The data obtained in this study was analyzed using a statistical program. The major results were as follows: In general, the level of the scientific concepts possessed by the talented students was much higher than that of the average students, especially in question 14. The reasons for the misconceptions which were revealed through this study were classified into vagueness of the language used, hasty decision and deduction making, using the wrong analogical inference, mass communications (TV or internet) and experimental differences between individuals. In terms of the reasons for the selection of a given response, the talented students had also a higher frequency in the 'science books for children' category than the average students, indicating that various kinds of science books for children have an influence on the formation of concepts on small living things. The misconception proportion of male students was 5.4% higher than that of female students in mean frequencies of all questions, although the difference was not statistically significant except for question 4. Data from this study may help teachers involved in education for gifted students to reconsider their conceptions on small living things.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.679-701
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• 2014

As the validity issue of teacher nominations for the identification of gifted students has been raised recently, this study purports to test the validity of teacher nominations for selecting scientifically gifted students. As the criterion variables, domain specific traits such as science creative problem solving skills and science attitudes and domain general characteristics such as divergent thinking skills, creative attitudes, intrinsic motivation, and leadership were analyzed. Scientifically gifted students, potentially gifted students who had never been enrolled in gifted programs but were nominated as the scientifically gifted by teachers, and general class students participated in the study. The results of ANOVA showed that there were significant differences in all variables but originality factors of the TTCT and science creative problem solving skill test between gifted/nominated students and general class students; gifted/nominated students were significantly superior in these variables to general class students. The discriminant functions analysis yielded a discriminant function that significantly discriminated between gifted/nominated and general class students. Variables loaded on the discriminant function were science creative problem solving skills except for the originality subfactor, and science efficacy. These results imply that while teachers are likely to consider adaptation-oriented academic excellency related to logical thinking skills, problem solving skills, and science performance when nominating students, they may ignore the innovation-oriented property which is indicated as the fluency and originality factors of TTCT. Also, the criteria of teacher nominations are presumed to be congruent with the selection criteria of the gifted education program which pursued academic excellency as the educational goal. This suggests that with such criteria, high performing students in the science area can be sufficiently identified by teachers with no further identification procedures or/and tests.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.477-501
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• 2009

The Purpose of this study is to investigate the general trends of research on gifted education in Korea, by analyzing the articles published during the last thirty years. A total of 347 articles from 14 academic journals which are registered were yearly and synthetically analyzed. The articles were examined in terms of their topics, domains, and age and grade. The most widely researched topic was the cognitive characteristics of the gifted followed by curriculum and affective characteristics of the gifted. Studies on scientifically, generally and mathematically gifted students occupied 86% of total researches. Researches utilized elementary students as their subjects more than middle school or high school students. There is a lack of research on the problems that the gifted students face and on the assessment of gifted education institutes. Moreover, there is hardly any longitudinal study.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.113-123
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• 2004

The concern with scientific mode1s has been growing in science education, and schematic models are frequently used to teach science concepts in secondary schools. The aim of this study is to investigate how well the scientifically gifted students understand scientific concepts through activities of modifying scientific models which we developed. Thirty 8th-grade students participated in the study, 15 in a control group and 15 in an experimental group. For the students in the experimental group, teaching material with activities of modifying models, while for the students in the control group, the teaching material with traditional activities such as explanation, problem solving, and reading. The teaching contents in physics for both groups were linear momentum. We used multiple-choice test and essay-type test to evaluate students' achievements after lessons, and then compared their achievements of both groups. Through the research, we could find a clue that model-modifying activities are helpful for the gifted students to enhance their understanding of physics concepts, although the statistics does not show meaningful difference between experimental and control groups.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.773-796
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• 2011

This study examined the thinking styles of scientifically gifted students on the basis of Sternberg's theory of mental self-government, and the relationship between thinking styles and self-regulated learning ability of the students and their scientific inquiry ability by the different types of thinking styles. 110 middle school students who belonging to the university science-gifted education center participated in this study. 13 thinking styles were postulated that fall along 5 dimensions which are functions, forms, levels, scopes and leanings of the mental self-government. Scientifically gifted students responded to the Thinking Style Inventory (TSI) that standardized Korean version, Self-regulated Ability Inventory and Test of Science Inquiry Skills Inventory (TSIS). The results indicated that scientifically gifted students prefer legislative, liberal, external, hierarchical and judical thinking styles, rather than conservative style. This result also showed that subscales of thinking styles were significantly correlated with self-regulated learning ability and scientific inquiry ability. The legislative style, hierarchical style, local style and liberal style were significant predictors of self-regulation learning ability. The legislative style was significant predictor, whereas oligarchic style was negative predictor of scientific inquiry ability. The results of k-means clustering analysis and MANOVA showed that the self-regulated learning ability and scientific inquiry ability were significantly correlated with the pattern and level of thinking style.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.279-302
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• 2009

This paper was to examine the effects of university-based science gifted education program on scientifically gifted students' science problem finding ability and cognitive-affective factors. For this study, 69 scientifically gifted students with previous Silted education experiences at the university-based science gifted education centers and 91 scientifically gifted students without any previous gifted education experiences were compared. Both groups of students were currently enrolled at a specialized science high school. To compare both groups, scientific problem finding ability, science anxiety, science related attitude, self-efficacy, intrinsic motivation, test anxiety, cognitive strategies, and self-regulation were measured. The results indicate that there was no significant difference on scientific problem finding ability between these two groups. The comparison between the past and now in the aspects of variables observed in the study showed that both groups of students were decreased in the science anxiety and self-efficacy. But the test anxiety was significantly increased compared to the past in both groups. Implications of the study were discussed in depth.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.943-966
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• 2012

The purpose of this research was to compare the leadership characteristics and emotional intelligence between scientifically gifted middle school students and general students and to investigate the emotional intelligence's effects on leadership characteristics. For this study, 150 scientifically gifted middle school students and 130 general students were participated. The results obtained from this study were as follows. First, the total score of leadership characteristic and sub-domains of leadership characteristic showed significant difference. The leadership characteristic of the gifted students turned out to be significantly higher than that of general students. Investigating gender difference, it showed that the score of girls significantly higher than that of boys in some sub-domain both gifted and general students. Second, the total score of emotional intelligence and sub-domains of emotional intelligence showed significant difference. There were significant differences between the two groups in 'thinking-acceleration ability by emotion' and 'ability of utilizing emotional knowledge'. Investigating gender difference, it showed that the score of girls significantly higher than that of boys in some sub-domain both gifted and general students. Third, it proved to be significantly positive correlation between leadership characteristic and emotional intelligence of gifted middle school students. Forth, the gifted students' emotional intelligence affected leadership characteristic significantly by multiple regression analysis.