• 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 Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.25 no.spc5
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• pp.476-484
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• 2007

The purpose of this study is to examine the misconception profiles of the scientifically-gifted and non-gifted children in terms of basic physics concepts and to compare them in terms of the types of differences in misconception as well as in their understanding of the concepts themselves. The subjects of this study were 75 scientifically-gifted children attending the Educational Center of Gifted Children in DNUE and 148 non-gifted children in elementary schools in Daegu city. For the purposes of this study, the basic concepts of physics (heat, electromagnetism, force, and light) which should be learned in an elementary school were selected with a review of related previous research and with an analysis of the 7th science curriculum. Next, a questionnaire was made which was made up of 20 multiple choice statement based items. Analysis of the results of the statement sections in the test, it was hoped, would reveal the difference between the scientifically-gifted and the non-gifted children's understanding, while the responses in the multiple choice items would suggest the differences between the two groups in terms of the misconceptions regarding physics concepts. The results of this study are as follows: First, although both the gifted and non-gifted children showed a low level of understanding of the concepts of heat, electromagnetism, force, and light, the gifted children' level of understanding of those physics concepts was proved to be significantly higher than the non-gifted, so it seems that the scientifically-gifted children have fundamentally understood the concepts in physics and have a higher level of understanding of them. Additionally, both the scientifically-gifted and non-gifted children' level of understanding of all the concepts was lower in the order of electromagnetism, heat, force, and light. This shows that both the scientifically-gifted and the non-gifted children have no difference in the level of understanding of any specific physics concept, but have similar levels of difficulty in every concept. Second, both the scientifically-gifted and non-gifted children showed similar types of misconceptions. However, the scientifically-gifted children had fewer misconceptions than the non-gifted. We suggest that scientifically-gifted children's misconceptions were not fixed yet, so there remained a possibility of them being corrected easily with appropriate instruction.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.54-67
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to investigate research trends in the area of science education for the gifted through the analysis of articles published from 1999 to 2009. The articles were analyzed by subjects, topics and study method. In the analysis according to year, we discovered that the number of articles has increased since 2005. Most research subjects were middle school students. Other research subjects included elementary and high school students. The first topic that was researched in general was the characteristics of the scientifically gifted. The second topic was the curriculum and program of science education for the gifted. It was also found that the method most employed was surveys, followed by experimental study.

• Journal of Engineering Education Research
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.38-44
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• 2004

The purpose of this study was to investigate the creative characteristics of the scientifically gifted university students and the relationship between creativity and introductory engineering courses. Torrance Test of Creative Thinking(TTCT) verbal and figural forms were administered to the two groups of students, scientifically gifted students and general students. The TTCT results and their first year grade point average(GPA) were analysed by t-test method and Pearson's correlation analysis. The major findings are, (1) general students group got higher scores in some factors such as flexibility of verbal form TTCT, but significant differences between the two groups were generally not found, and (2) the factors such as the originality of figural form TTCT showed small positive correlation with GPA, but the other factors were barely related to GPA.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.107-130
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to investigate the characteristics that indicate scientifically gifted students by analyzing the verbal interactions in developmental biology inquiry-experimental classes. The subjects were 20 first-grade middle school students who were participating in SNU Science Gifted Education Center. In these experimental classes which were developed based on the CPS Model, we conducted a total of four experimental sessions of small group discussions, and the students' verbal interactions were both taped and video recorded, and observed. From the transcriptions, the patterns of question-answer and the characteristics of scientifically gifted students were analyzed. In the case of question-answer patterns, thinking questions appeared 3~6 times more frequently than the standard information questions. Especially, the case of experimental class I showed 40% more thinking questions as well as standard information questions that the other 3 classes. Through the results of analysing verbal interactions, we were able to find more detailed aspects to creativity that were not identifiable in paper-pencil examinations, as well as affective characteristics such as task commitment and leadership. We believe our findings upon inquiry will be of substantial significance in substituting for the paper-pencil examination in distinguishing and selecting scientifically gifted students.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.152-158
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• 2013

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.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.189-203
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• 2011

The object of this study is to investigate the views of scientifically gifted children about the purpose of scientists' experiments and school science experiments. The children's views were examined using a open-ended questionnaire survey. And then the responses from the children were analyzed with categorization. The results from the study are as follows: First, the children's views about the purpose of scientists' experiments and school science experiments were classified to 2 top-level, 5 mid-level and 21 sub-level categories. Second, it was found that the children considered internal values of doing experiments are more worthy than the social and personal usefulness of the experiments. Third, the gifted children mentioned most frequently that the purposes of the scientist experiment is 'to get the evidences for their theory and argument which is unusual in the regular children's views. Also the discovery of new phenomena and materials, and the generation of new theories and ideas were mentioned as purposes of the scientist experiments. Fourth, the students frequently stated that school science experiments support effective learning of science subject enhancing subject interests and better explanation/understanding. Fifth, relatively many students thought that the purposes of school science experiments are different with those of scientist experiments. Based on the results from the study, some educational suggestions are discussed.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.595-601
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• 2005

In this study, the scientifically gifted students and the general students were compared in terms of the following components in cooperative teaming: whom they interacted with, to/from whom they gave/received help and why, and what kinds of the verbal interaction patterns they engaged in. The subjects were 4th graders. The data were collected through the investigation of the students' perception and videotaping of the small group interactions of each group. The results showed that the gifted students interacted with most students in their groups. They complemented each others' opinions and their discussion was enriched through their interactions. On the other hand, the interactions of the general students occurred mostly around a leader, and more teamed students explained the content to the less teamed students. Predominantly, the gifted students' most verbal behaviors were related with the teaming contents. Most frequent verbal behavior were a giving specific information and an explanation of their opinions. The general students, however, gave simple and short information, and more often they showed the management behaviors, such as encouraging participation and suggesting their directions.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.343-363
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to analyze the relationship creativity and motivation. The subjects were 297 gifted students, selected in the examination for entrance to the Science Education Institute for the Gifted located Jeonbuk. To compare the gifted students' creativity and motivation with the normal students', this study used the standardized test, the Creativity Inventory for Students(by Choi & Lee, 2004) and Multi-Dimensional Learning Strategy Test(by Park, 2006). The major results of this study were as follows; First, The gifted students group was high group in the creativity, and especially the gifted girls were significantly higher than the gifted boys. Second, learning motivation of the gifted students were high or than the normal students and the gifted students were inclined to cope actively to challenge situation rather than avoid. Third, The Creativity showed the positive relationship with learning motivation, the negative relationship with avoid motivation, and moderate relationship with competitive motivation. This result suggested that it is very important to encourage gifted students to the intrinsic motivation rather than extrinsic motivation like competition or achievement in education.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.927-943
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• 2011

What are the critical factors in deciding future career to the gifted and talented students? The present study started with this question, and was to develop a career decision-making scale for scientifically gifted undergraduates. For this, literatures related to the scientifically gifted/talent and scientists' career decision-making were reviewed and examined in depth. Based on the review of the related literature, the developed scale of career decision-making was comprised of 26 items in 6 factors, such as individual aptitude & self-realization, economic aspect, work & leisure, familial influence, parents/teachers' recommendation, and experience of science activity during the school days. For the preliminary exploratory factor analysis, 153 undergraduate students who were majoring in natural sciences and engineer participated in the study. For the confirmatory factor analysis, 264 undergraduates who were awarded the presidential scholarships and 93 undergraduates who completed a university-affiliated gifted education center participated. The results of the study are as follows. The fit of measurement model was found to be $x^{2}$=645.157 (df=279, p=.00), TLI=.924, CFI= .935, RMSEA=.061, indicating most of fit indexes were acceptable. Cronbach's ${\alpha}$ in each sub-factor was quite high, .82 for individual aptitude & self-realization, .94 for economic aspect, .84 for work and leisure, .88 for familial influence, .79 for patents/ teachers' recommendation, and .79 for experience of science activity during the school days. The results of the study were discussed whether the developed scale could be used as a valid and reliable tool for measuring career decision-making factors of the scientifically gifted undergraduates in our country.