Comparing the Science Inquiry Abilities of the Gifted Elementary Students in Science and General Students

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to obtain new data for science education by comparing scientific research and analysis ability of two different groups of elementary school students; one consisted of gifted children and the other of children of general ability. Two groups of 6th graders were used for this study: one consisted of 20 students from a class of gifted students in science and the other 30 stu dents from a regular class. Each group carried out experiments individually to find the causes that affect a pendulum¡¯s cycle. In this research, we were gauged children¡¯s research ability in the follow ing four areas ¡°strategies in confirming prediction¡±, ¡°variable controlling¡±, ¡°evidence evaluation¡±, and ¡°drawing conclusions". It was discovered that the scientific research and analysis ability of science gifted children is much higher than of regular students, and this appears to be characteristic of a spe cific group of gifted students. We also found that there were a number of students with predominantly high research ability in the regular students group and that 13% of the science-gifted students show scientific research ability equal to the average score of the regular students.