Gifted and talented students' opinions and attitudes towards visual arts and music courses

Individuals who are called as talented are those who have higher level of performance than their peers in terms of their general and / or specific talents. It is known that the program and syllabi used for ordinary individuals are not sufficient for talented and gifted students' training. Ottoman State has a brilliant example called "Enderun School" for gifted/talented students' training. Science and Art Centers are the educational institutions founded for training gifted and talented students. Science and Art Centers aims at developing talented students' performances/talents at high level by using special training programs. The aim of this study is to determine Elazığ Science and Art Center students' opinions and attitudes towards Visual Arts and Music courses. This is descriptive study and survey method was used. Mixed research method, including both qualitative and quantitative data, was used in the study. Study group includes students enrolled at Elazığ Science and Art Center during 2014-2015 academic year. There are totally 210 students in study group. 80 students were selected among 5-12 graders for quantitative data of the study. Interviews were conducted with 80 students. "Attitude Scale towards Visal Arts Course" developed by Aslantaş (2014) and Attitude Scale towards Music Course for Secondary School Students" developed by Varış and Cesur (2012) were used to collect quantitative data. Percentage, frequency and means score were used to analyze quantitative data. Content analysis was used to analyze qualitative data. With the study, it was determined that students enrolled at Science and Art Center had positive attitudes towards Visual Arts and Music courses. Students enjoy those courses and feel happy as they participate the courses. Students develop their abilities with these courses. Students enjoy drawing pictures in their spare times and they make activities out of class times. On the other hand, students expressed that teachers have interested in them.