Relationship of gifted students epistemological beliefs with science achievement and motivation towards science learning

The purpose of this study is to investigate relationship of scientific epistemological beliefs of fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grade gifted students in Science and Art Centers with their motivation towards science learning and science achievement. The study was designed as a correlational study and Scientific Epistemological Beliefs Scale, Science Achievement Test and Motivation towards Science Learning Scale were used to collect data. The target population of the study included all gifted fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth grade students in all Science and Art Centers in 2012-2013 period while the accessible population included fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth grade gifted students in Malatya Science and Art Center. In selection of the sample, accessibility by there searcher and nearness of Malatya Science and Art Center to there searcher were considered and 84 gifted students (35 girls and 49 boys) in Malatya were selected. The data were analyzed by Spearman correlation analysis and the results showed that there was a statistically significant relationship between motivation towards science learning and scientific epistemological beliefs of the gifted students. But there was no statistically significant relationship between science achievement and scientific epistemological beliefs of the gifted students. Task oriented effort and task value aspects of the motivation were positively correlated with "development" and "truth" aspects of scientific epistemological beliefs. Keywords: Scientific Epistemological Beliefs, Science Achievement, Motivation Towards Science Learning, Gifted Student