The analysis of research about gifted and talented children at early childhood in Turkey: a study of meta – synthesis

Abstract

The objective/aim of this study is to give an analysis of the researches conducted on gifted and talented in the early childhood period in Turkey through the methodology of meta-synthesis, and yet to reveal the tendencies of the scientific studies. This study provides the literature scanning/reviewing for the articles and graduate thesis written in Turkey between the years of 2002 and 2017. 37 scientific studies are included in this study. At choosing the studies, Google Scholars’ search engine, databases of TUBITAK ULAKBIM DergiPark, YOK National Thesis Center, EBSCOhost- ERIC, and SPRINGER are recruited. All the studies which are approached for this study are analyzed through the content analysis for different themes such as years, subjects, working groups, objectives, methods, and outcomes. These categories of the themes present the data and these data are interpreted based on frequency and percentage values. All the theme categories and frequency values are visually shown in tables and graphs. As a result of this study, it is stated that studies on determining the gifted or talented kids in the early childhood period are quantitatively more. It is found interesting that most of the studies have recruited scales and survey methods. Some of the studies on this subject are the articles from the thesis studies. It is revealed that studies focusing on differentiated education programs for the gifted and talented kids in early childhood are minute amount. In accordance with these results, several facts and suggestions related to these facts are discovered such as multi-dimensional measurement methods are needed to be related to identification in Turkey’s early childhood period, identification for the gifted and talented kids in their early childhood period is crucial as well as the education for their parents and teachers due to their health education is needed, it is also needed to develop relevant differentiated education programs related to kids’ talent fields and finally, it is important to create a national education program to be applied to all the departments who are concerned.