Abstract
People with high intelligence levels are the most important human resource in the society which they live in. Societies that have discovered the importance of potential of gifted students, can progress much higher than their peers in the fields of studies on gifted children and their education. In this context, in recent years the educational activities for gifted students have increased in Turkey as well as all over the world. At this point, Science and Art Centers (BILSEM) were established to aim providing education for individuals with superior abilities and intelligence. The gifted students who are educated in these centers can also receive education at school like other students. One of these courses is Religious Culture and Ethics. However, there are no studies to determine the attitudes of students with these characteristics towards the course of Religious Culture and Ethics.
In this context, the aim of the research is to examine the general attitudes of gifted students about the course of Religious Culture and Ethics with different variables. On the other hand, other aims of the research are to draw attention on the gap in the field related to gifted students, to demonstrate that more in-depth studies are needed to determine the interests and needs of gifted students in the field of teaching religion and ethics, and to lay the groundwork for new researches on this issue.
The study used the model of literature review from quantitative research methods. The study group consists of secondary and high school students who are diagnosed as “gifted” by the Ministry of National Education, General Directorate of Special Education. The research data in research was collected in the 2019-2020 academic year. The SPSS package program was used to analyse the data obtained. For the testing reliability of the scale based on the data obtained, the internal consistency coefficient (Cronbach’s Alpha) was calculated and the value of Cronbach’ Alpha was calculated to be 0,05. In addition, the descriptive statistics such as percentage, frequency, and arithmetic mean are also included to summarize the data.
As a result of the analysis, it was concluded that the attitudes of gifted students in the study regarding the courses of Religious Culture and Ethics were positive. It was resulted that their attitudes did not differ statistically according to gender and maternal learning status, but differed statistically according to the paternal educational background, level of class and income.
At this point, it was found important the determining of expectation of students themselves and their parents from the curriculum, teachers, teaching activities, materials, and methods of the course to review for the positively increasing attitudes of both gifted students and students with normal intelligence towards to the course. Another important result of this research, the priority recommended is to conduct qualitative studies that will provide more in-dept data to support the quantitative data. Another important recommendation is to develop the differentiated DKAB curriculum for gifted students taking into account the recommendations of relevant results. It is also important to develop the course materials that take into account their learning capacities, high-level thinking skills, interests and needs to ensure that educational activities for gifted students are carried out in integrity. In all educational activities that will be designed for gifted students, care should be taken to choose and develop approaches, methods-techniques and materials that will make it possible to build knowledge up, not present pattern knowledge.