Gifted Students’ Conceptions of Their High School STEM Education

Abstract

This qualitative study was conducted to explore gifted students' conceptions of their high school science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. Participants were seven male and female college freshmen selected from the Honors College of a large research university. In-depth interviews captured students' retrospective accounts of their conceptualizations of their high school STEM education. Interview transcripts were analyzed inductively using a phenomenographic analysis framework. Findings comprised an outcome space composed of six core categories of meaning representing STEM learning environment, institutional supports, social supports, teacher qualities, active involvement in learning, and students' self-perceptions of their STEM capability. Findings from this study offer a deep understanding of contemporary STEM education of gifted secondary students and help inform future curriculum design, program evaluation, and educational policy.

Using Local Rural Knowledge to Enhance STEM Learning for Gifted and Talented Students in Australia

“…Conducting science in the field with experienced scientists was highly engaging, and using sustainability issues as a context for learning linked to the gifted and talented students' sense of social justice and their need to situate learning within the Bbigger picture^ (Harrison 2004;Merrick and Targett 2004). Furthermore, the students trusted in the quality of information and learning because of their engagement with university scientists and science educators alongside their regular classroom teacher, which is important in establishing positive relationships between teachers and students within gifted education (Hertberg-Davis and Callahan 2008; Mullet et al 2018;Siegle et al 2014).…”

“…Gifted learners are responsive to a degree of autonomy over their own learning, including learning in STEM subjects (Mullet et al 2018). This allows the students a degree of choice and autonomy over the depth and breadth of the content, the learning processes used, and the application of creativity, aligning well with the National Research Council (2002) recommendation of a student-centred approach to teaching STEM.…”

“…Students have linked positive STEM self-efficacy to positive experiences in STEM subjects. Gifted students cite increased positive self-efficacy in STEM subjects as a result of mastering previously challenging topics or tasks through persistence, while willingness to persist has been linked to positive self-efficacy (Dieker et al 2012;Hertzog 2003;Mullet et al 2018). Thus, there is a self-perpetuating formula if teachers can find ways to increase gifted students' STEM self-efficacy.…”

Investigación Bibliométrica en Aprendizaje Mediado por Tecnología con Alumnado de Altas Capacidades1,

“…y 2018. Los datos indican que el interés y esfuerzo por el estudio del aprendizaje mediado por tecnología en alumnado con AACC ha ido creciendo, así se refleja en el aumento de trabajos publicados y disponibles en la base de datos Scopus fundamentalmente en los últimos 10 años llegando al número máximo de trabajos en 2018 con cinco contribuciones (Lutsik, Sobolev, & Isaev, 2018;Mullet, Kettler, & Sabatini, 2018;Mun & Hertzog, 2018;Tofel-Grehl, Feldon, & Callahan, 2018;Torkar, Avsec, Čepič, Ferk Savec, & Juriševič, 2018), por lo que se apunta a que la tendencia es creciente.…”

“…Ejemplo de estrategias descritas en estos trabajos son: la realidad virtual (Ucar, SUELVES, D.M. et al Ustunel, Civelek, & Umut, 2017), el uso de tecnología móvil (Trumble, Farah, & Slykhuis, 2017), creación de entornos (Shaw & Giles, 2014) y ambientes de aprendizaje (Handa, 2009), aprendizaje autónomo (Jen & Moon, 2015), ABP (Liu, 2004), aprendizaje en línea (Ng & Nicholas, 2007) o la organización de apoyos (Mullet, Kettler, & Sabatini, 2018).…”