Special Education Preservice Teachers’ Perceptions of Giftedness

Perceptions of special education preservice teachers on the concept of giftedness were revealed in this study. The findings were evaluated on the basis of the implicit theories of giftedness which are classified as theories that can represent society according to giftedness, culture and time. One of the qualitative research methods the phenomenological design was used. Participants included 9 students in the first year of Special Education Teaching Department in 2017-2018 Academic Year. The opinions of the students were collected via semi-structured interview questions. Data were analyzed by inductive approach. Analysis of these interviews revealed five main findings. It was determined that all of the participants showed genetic factors as the main factor affecting giftedness and many of them linked giftedness with advanced cognitive characteristics. It was observed that the participants thought that the current education programs were not sufficient for gifted students but they did not have any information about how the training should be. Participants reported mostly negative traits regarding the social characteristics of gifted children. The emerging finding of the study is on the reasons why the participants prefer the Special Education Teaching Department