Investigation of gifted secondary school students' opinions and behaviours related to their creative, reflective and problem solving skills in a project based robotics course

The purpose of this study is to investigate the behaviors of gifted students related to their creative, reflective thinking and problem solving skills in their project based basic robotics summer course in 2015-2016 Science and Art Center in Ankara. Participants of this study were seven secondary school gifted studens between the age of 12-13. This study was a qualitative case study. Data were collected trough Project Performance Rubric that was developed by the researcher, interviews during course, longtitutional interviews, researchers diary, and students' diaries. Those data were analysed through qualitative analysis methods. On the other hand, quantitative analysis was conducted on the data where characteristics of students were collected through childrens' Problem Solving Scale and Reflective Thinking Scale. Results indicated that the project based basic robotics course seems to be attributed students' creative and reflective thinking skills as well as their problem skills. Students also presented positive attitudes towards robotics after eight months and it was found that they were still continuing robotics projects. Key Words: Robotics, Gifted Students, Creative Thinking Skills, Reflective Thinking Skills, Problem Solving Skills, Attitude Towards Robotics