Analysis of Scientific Epistemological Beliefs and STEM Attitudes of The Gifted Students

Abstract

The aim of this study is to analyze the relationship between STEM attitudes and epistemological beliefs of gifted students. For this purpose, the level of epistemological beliefs and attitudes towards STEM fields has been examined in the study. Also, some examinations have been made in order to find out whether the dimensions of STEM attitude ‘’science, mathematics, engineering-technology, 21st century skills’’ and epistemological belief differ from each other within the dimensions of authority and accuracy, information generation, source of information, reasoning and variance of information. The sample of the study consists of totally 105 gifted students who have attended in two different science and art centers .In this study; descriptive scanning model, which is one of the quantitative research methods, and non-parametric tests have been used for the analysis of the data obtained. As a result of the study, it has been observed that students with superior intelligence have a scientific epistemological belief at an advanced (contemporary) level of information generation, reasoning and variance of information, while they have a traditional epistemological belief in the sub-dimensions of authority-accuracy and source of information, As for the STEM attitudes, it has been found out that they have low averages in the dimensions of math and science.