The Components and the Characteristics Revealed at the Processes of Designing Application Experiments of Science-gifted Students

Abstract

In this study, we investigated the thinking processes of 7th grade science-gifted students in designing application experiments and analyzed their performance levels in the categorized processes. The analyses of the results revealed that they considered 'setting a problem situation,' 'deciding a strategy,' 'identifying the assumptions,' 'defining the measurements,' and 'validating the assumptions' in the processes of designing experiments. However, their performance levels of the categorized processes were found to be rather low. It was especially insufficient in setting the situations concretely appropriated to solve the problems and checking their own thinking critically by proper criteria. Therefore, we suggested a potential learning strategy for designing experiments such as replacing difficult and abstract situations to concrete and familiar situations. These results may offer some implications in developing an education program for science-gifted students to foster creativity by emphasizing scientific thinking skills such as experiment design ability.