Examination of preschool teachers' knowledge levels on gifted children

Teachers who follow the development of children in the pre-school period need to have information about these children in order to identify gifted children. In this direction, it was aimed to examine the knowledge levels of preschool teachers about gifted children. In the research, "Demographic Information Form" and "Knowledge Test on Gifted Education" were used. The study group of the research consists of 184 preschool teachers working in independent kindergartens and kindergartens within the primary school in Selçuklu district, which is one of the central districts of Konya, in the 2020-2021 academic year. In the descriptive survey model, the chi-square test was used in the analysis of the data to test whether the answers given to the "Knowledge Test for Gifted Education" questions according to demographic variables make a statistical difference. No significant difference was found in the knowledge of teachers according to variables such as age, education level, being a gifted child in their class, and working with a gifted child in the past. However, there was a significant difference between the knowledge levels and variables such as the program graduated, seniority, type of school, age group, taking special education lessons at the university, receiving any education related to gifted children. In the research, it was concluded that the knowledge of preschool teachers about gifted children is not at a sufficient level. In this direction, studies involving training can be carried out experimentally in order to increase the knowledge level of teachers.