Investigation of relationship between creativity potential and scientific imagination of gifted children and comparing them with their peers

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between the creativity and scientific imagination of gifted children in early childhood and to find out whether they differ from their typically developing peers. This study was designed in a correlational design, one of the quantitative research types. The research has two study groups. The first one is the group of gifted children determined by the homogeneous sampling method. The second group is the group of typically developing peers of gifted children determined by criterion sampling method. There were 30 children in each group, totaling 60 children aged between 71 months and 79 months. Gifted children are diagnosed using the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-R) or the Stanford Binet Intelligence Test (IQ 130 and above). Within the scope of the study, data were collected through the Evaluation of Potential Creativity (EPoC) and the Scientific Imagination Inventory. Sample t test, Mann-Whitney U test, eta-square, logistic regression and Pearson correlation method were used to analyze the data obtained. As a result of the study, a significant relationship was found between EPoC sub-dimensions and Scientific Imagination Inventory sub-dimensions in the gifted, typically developing peers and the all group. In addition, significant differences were found between gifted children and their peers in the sub-dimensions of both data collection tools. Moreover, both some constructs from the EPoC sub-dimensions and some constructs from the Scientific Imagination Inventory sub-dimensions were found to be predictive of giftedness. There is no significant difference between the sub-dimensions of the EPoC and scientific imagination inventory sub-dimension scores according to the gender of the children in the gifted and typical development group.

Keywords

• Gifted and talented
• creativity
• scientific imagination
• early childhood
• preschool

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