Attitudes of gifted or special ability student toward the social studies and their academic achievements

Heritage and environment are the two factors that effect individiualintelligence. Measuring the intelligence is one the most interesting subject in thestudy of intelligence. The main reason to measure the intelligence is to investigatethe intelligence by dividing do basic parts. The first intelligence tets is developed byalfred Binet and Dr. Simon in 1905. there are three ability parts measured bytraditional intelligence tests. Verbal, numerical and space relations.But nowadays traditional approch is opposed and it?s accepted thatintelligence is occured by many abilities which are related or unrelated with eachother. İn spite of many theories models about multiple intelligence today, Gardner?smultiple intelligence theory is the basic theory in education of high abilities. Gardnercritisized the traditional mentality of intelligence and advanced that the intelligencecontains many abilities.By enforcing the first tests to meausre the intelligence, the studies startedabout high ability people. Nowadays, Renzulli?s definition about the high ability inthe people reveals by the interaction of three mains parta which are ability,creativeness and motivation.High ability people must study according to their abilities; otherwise, theproducts that will be produced by those children will be a loss for the society,humanity and the country it?s assumed that high ability people are 2% population.It?s estimated tat there are 519 000 high ability people in 0-18 age group according tothe 2000 census of population.The main studies about education of high abilities started since 20th. Centuryand developed in 1960?s. Important studies are made in Israel, Russia (USSR), USAand Chine. İn the history of education of high abilities, our country has an importantrole. The first systematic and long timed education of high abilities was made inpalace school of Ottoman Empire.During Republic period, in 1948 and 1956, legal arrangements were madeabout education of high abilities. In 1960?s, different educational methods weretested in schools. By 1990?s, the subject was again taken up and different practiceswere tested. Now, the most known practice places about education of high abilitiesare science and art centers.One of the main principles in education of high abilities is to realize theabilities of those children and develop their creativity. Thus, adaptation of personwith society will be obtained. Here, there is a great responsibility of socail studiesand its teachers. Social studies is related with growing up responsible citizens.Furthermore, it?s related with gaining knowledge, attitude and ability.We use concept of attitude oftenly in our daily life. The gained attitudeseffect espicially our daily behaviour and they have and important role in socialrelations of people. The attitude is occured by three elments: Cognitive, emotional,Behavioural.This research has been conducted to discern The attitudes of gifted andspecial ability student toward the social studies and their academic achivements verysignificiantly in terms at their sex, age, level of class, income of family, sexuality ofteacher, academic achivements, grade and parts in science and art center. It isexpected to help in social studies in education high and special ability students.The search was conducted at the student of the scale of attitudes towardssocial studies used in research, was developed by the researcher. At the and of thepilot administration of the sacale, 365 students. After the Factor analisys, some of the40 items on the scale were eliminated 8 element and the final form of the scaleconsisted of 32 items and three sub-scales, cognitive, emotinal, behavioral. Thereliability of the scale was calculated as 0,91 in this describtive type research, as aresult of were deals with, and factor analysis, one way variants, t-test and test ofscheffe were employt to analysis the data.The developed scale is applied to 130 student in science and art center inİzmir and Manisa. As a result, there is no meaningful difference between the attitudeof high or special ability students in socail studies and sex, education of parents,income of family and the between sexuality of teacher. But , there is a meaningfuldiffernce between the attitude of students and age, level of class grade and parts inscience and art center.Key words: İntelligence, İntelligence Quatient, High Ability, Attitude, SocialStudies