A Comparison of Gifted and Non-gifted Students’ Self-regulation Skills for Science Learning

Abstract

The studies related to what skills are firstly needed to be gained in the gifted students’ education are increasing gradually. The gifted individuals’ being independent learners are desirable situation. Self-regulation skills are a set of abilities that help a person to control and monitor their own behavior, thoughts and changing flexibly them in accordance with the demands of the situation. When viewed from this aspect, it can be said that self-regulation skills should be gained in the educations of the gifted students. In this study, a Self-regulation Skills for Science Learning Scale (SSSLS) has been developed by researcher. Thanks to this scale, the self-regulation skills of the gifted students and non-gifted in learning science have been compared. The sample of the research has been determined in accordance with purposeful sampling method. Non-gifted students are the students who study in two schools determined according to typical sampling method in a province the socio-economic level of which in Turkey is medium-scale. The gifted students are those who enrolled in Science and Art Centre that gives education to the gifted students in the same province. 264 students have been determined at the level of 4th to 8th grade in the sample of the research. As the result of research findings, it has been determined that gifted students’ self-regulation skills for science learning are higher than the non-gifted students. It has seen that there are significant differences between the self-regulation skills points of both groups in science learning (p<0.001).However, a significant difference hasn’t been seen at the metacognitive skills dimension that is one of the sub-dimensions of the scale (p>0.05).The metacognitive skills contain very important skills (e.g. goal setting, monitoring, self-assessment, regulation) on the nurturing of talent. The students’ not having differentiation in the scores of metacognitive skills can be indicator that available gifted education programs doesn’t have the quality to develop these skills.

Keywords

• gifted education,self-regulation skills for science learning,gifted and non-gifted students

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