• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.25 no.8
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• pp.708-718
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• 2004

On the basis of Sternberg's theory of mental self-government, this examined the difference in thinking style between gifted science students and non-gifted students, and their earth science concepts by the different types of thinking styles. The subjects were consisted of 120 students from the Busan Science Academy and 122 students from two general high schools in Busan, Korea. All participants responded to the Thinking Styles Inventory which is a self-report test consisting of 65 items, and essay questions for examining the students' earth science concepts. The results are as follows. First, the gifted science students prefer legislative, judical, anarchic, global, and liberal styles, where non-gifted students prefer executive, oligarchic, and conservative styles. Second, Type I thinking style group prove to have more complex concepts in relation to the geological and astronomical areas than those of the Type II thinking style group in both of the gifted and non-gifted students. This indicates that Type I thinking style students use a deep learning approach where Type II thinking style students use a surface learning approach.