Giftedness is a desired characteristic for everybody to function effectively in
life. Based on the importance of the giftedness, identification and education
programs were developed in different countries (Aljughaiman & Ayoub, 2013; Davis
& Rimm, 2010; Johnsen & Corn, 2001). Giftedness is defined as intersection of
academic ability, creativity and motivation (Renzulli & Reis, 1985). As a domain for
academic ability, science education for gifted students takes a great deal of attention.
In some studies, lists of the behavioral characteristics of gifted children in science
were provided. As one of them, Johnsen’s (2004, 8) study represented some
characteristics in the fields of math and science, for example; gifted student in
science and math “is interested in numerical analysis” and “has a good memory for storing
the primary features of problems and solutions”. These characteristics are only one
aspect of giftedness; academic ability, but motivation and creative thinking should
also be represented in science domain to identify a student as scientifically gifted.
Motivation aspect of giftedness has long history of research (Siegle & McCoach,
2005; Ziegler & Heller, 2000). Similar to domain specificity discussion in giftedness,
motivation of gifted students was also studied by taking into account domain
differences. Different theoretical frameworks were applied to understanding domain
specific motivation of gifted students. Some studied showed high level motivation of
gifted students to learn science (Koksal, 2012; Koksal, 2013). As similar to giftedness
and motivation, third aspect of giftedness; creativity should also be studied by
applying domain specific frameworks. In this study investigating scientific creativity
of gifted students is purposed.
Creativity aspect of giftedness is a well-studied subject in gifted literature
(Cropley, 1993; Kaufman, Plucker & Russell, 2012; Petroviç, Trifunoviç &
Milovanoviç, 2013). But some researchers thought that there should also be a
distinction among general creativity and domain specific creativity including
scientific creativity (Baer & Kaufman, 2005; Kind & Kind, 2007). Similar distinction
was made by separating different types of creativity such as everyday creativity and
scientific creativity by different researchers (Runco, 2004; Kaufman & Baer, 2004;
Kaufman & Baer, 2009). Feist (2004) suggested a model to name creativity domains
called as “domains of mind”, in his model seven areas of creative thinking were
involved: biology, physics, math, psychology, linguistics, art, and music. As seen in
the model science disciplines; biology and physics are emphasized as creativity
domains. Boden (2001) stated that new ideas that are surprising, intelligible and
valuable are results of creativity process, similarly scientific creativity process also
results in surprising, intelligible and valuable products. But scientific creativity has
its own creativity process during inquiry activities. Inquiry process of science
requires using scientific creativity to reach original solutions and products in its distinctive processes such as hypothesizing, inferring and predicting (Barrow, 2010).
Hu and Adey (2002) defined scientific creativity as “a kind of intellectual trait or ability
producing or potentially producing a certain product that is original and has social or
personal value, designed with a certain purpose in mind, using given information”. In
scientific creativity process, giving continuous attention to and focusing on a
problem occur as an explicit cognitive function (Dietrich, 2004). Therefore scientific
creativity is an important field of creativity studies for giftedness.
In science curriculums, scientific creativity dimension is not emphasized
enough in spite of its clear importance for gifted students. But scientific creativity
includes problem solving, hypothesis generating, experiment designing and new
techniques (Lin et al., 2003). Although Turkish science curriculum emphasized
problem solving, experiment designing and hypothesis testing (Turkish Ministry of
Education [MEB], 2005), scientific creativity is not directly purposed in the
curriculum. In the literature majority of the studies either focused on ordinary
students (Kitto, Lok, & Rudowicz, 1994; Doolittle, 1990) or applied general creativity
frames on gifted students (Chein, 1982; Wang, 2012). However general creativity
tests will not assess scientific creativity (Hu and Adey, 2002). Assessment of
scientific creativity requires applying scientific performance content, based on this
idea Hu and Adey (2002) developed an instrument to measure scientific creativity.
In this study researchers investigated scientific creativity of eighth grade gifted
students by using the instrument for informing science curriculum differentiation
process for gifted students. The purpose of this study is to investigate scientific
creativity of eighth grade gifted students.
Aliye Hilal Cevher, Inonu University, Pelin Ertekin, Inonu University and Mustafa Serdar
Koksal, Inonu University
Not: Makalenin tamamına;
Cevher,
A.H., Ertekin, P., Köksal, M.S., (2014), Investigation of Scientific Creativity
of Eighth Grade Gifted Students, International
Journal of Innovation, Creativity and Change, 1(4), 19-26.
kaynağından erişilebilir.
