It is a known fact that development and modern civilization of a country are due to the fact the the human resources are used productively. For that reason, it is necessary to discover and educate gifted children properly because they are the locomotive power in the developing process of humanity (EraslanCapan, 2010), are responsible for societies’ development and provide competitive advantage (Ozmen and Komurlu, 2013). These are the responsibilities of the modern educational system (EraslanCapan, 2010; Senol, 2011).

The characteristics of gifted children should be well known  well   for  them  to  develop,  to  be  useful  to  the society and to discover their capacity. The recognization of gifted children by people who are interested in the education of children is very important to obtain healthy development and get to to the topl (Senol, 2011). If gifted children are not well discovered and trained timely, it may lead to irredeemable losses for the society. Also, the educational policies in Turkey give importance to development programmes for big groups, with sole target on discovering common abilities. However, in this case, gifted children are neglected. The educational policies are against this negative aspect and see it as an indispensable   obligation   of   all   socities   (Ozmen and Komurlu, 2013).

The field of gifted education is a universally accepted reality that some learners demonstrate outstanding performance or potential for superior performance in academic, creative, leadership, or artistic domains compared to their peers (Renzulli, 2012). The intelligence level above average generally seen as academic achievement and creativity is the first signal. Besides, intelligence, gifted children have special development in one or more fields such as drama, music, art, leadership (Karasu, 2010).

There are many different ideas about the characteristics of gifted students. Some ideas about their characteristics far from reality are that gifted students are so lucky, school works are so easy for them, they do excellent works and do not slog on their works. The reflection of the composition of these kinds of ideas to the education of gifted children has been in different types. For example, the idea that gifted students do not need help and they can learn themselves can give rise to neglect of educational services needed by the students. That is why students that do not receive educational services fall behind their potentials (Karasu, 2010).

Gifted students reveal themselves though attitudes, tendencies and routines. Gifted students ask prospective questions and important questions that can be formulized precisely and apparently. They gather and evaluate existing knowledge by using inferences in their comments. They test them by suitable criteria and standards and get well designed results and solutions. They communicate with others effectively and produce solutions to different problems (Kelemen, 2010). Because of their high intelligence level, they pay attention to mental operations and their cognitive self-consciousness is so high (Narimani and Mousazadeh, 2010).

Gifted students use their endless energy to reach their goals. They are efficient both mentally and physically (MEGEP, 2007). The most important characteristic of gifted students is their learning speed. These kinds of students learn to talk, read and write at an early age compared to their peers. They want to learn new things consistently with their grasping wonders (Karakurt, 2009). According to the research results of Terman, the gifted individual is gifted in science tests, physically healthy, successful at school, good at reading, learning language, mathematics, science, literature and art. But they have little differences at counting, enunciating and history science. They have a large knowlegde area that is rich and complex. They have personality traits of honesty, faithfulness, stability and naivety (Taller, 2004).

The self-conception of gifted children is more developed than their peers. They are popular among their friends. They play with children bigger than themselves. Compared with other children, they have less school indiscipline, have no crime and aggressive behavior. There are researches showing that the position of gifted students is satisfying in terms of mental health and social adaptation (Aktepe and Aktepe, 2009).  Gifted students have upper level thinking capacity. Also, it is known that gifted students make extraordinary connections between different thinking systems, events, states or knowledge, and by enjoying, they have intense interests in scientific complications and problems special to disciplines. Most of them have desire to contribute to solving problems and creativity in their talented areas. Generally, they need less time for learning, because they develop in the learning of new knowledge and solving problems compared with other students. Also, they prefer to independent, to be included in decision mechanism and to mark learning route in view of their talents (Sak, 2009).

Teachers have first degree responsibility for determining gifted students. For teachers to be able to understand the differences of these kinds of students depends on having knowledge about their characteristics and approaching them with a positive perspective (EraslanCapan, 2010).For the different characteristics of gifted students to be known is of importance in order to  form policies aimed at these individuals (Levent, 2012). Teachers have an indispensible role in the education of gifted and talented students. Teachers should have a well-developed conception of giftedness and a full understanding of the characteristics and the special needs of gifted and talented students so that they can facilitate effective identification and education. Teachers should know who gifted students are and what characteristics they have in order to have a well-developed gifted conception. Their understanding of giftedness and definitions of giftedness have important influences on their nomination decisions and classroom practices. It can also be concluded that education program given to gifted students would affect, directly or indirectly, the fulfillment of their potentials (Kaya, 2015).

Teachers’ insufficient and wrong knowledge about gifted students is an indicator that they are unable to direct students to institutes of special education or out of school programs (Akar and Akar, 2012).For children to thrive in today’s society, they must be educated beyond simple literacy. A solid education is a necessity for gifted and “potentially gifted” students to realize their full potential. After all, the gifted children of today will be the leaders of tomorrow in medicine, business, politics, research, arts, and beyond (Fisher, 2013).

There are more needs to be done to encourage homeroom teachers to better understand gifted children through training programs (Chung, Kim, Lee and Park, 2013).Increasing parents’ and teachers’ awareness will increase the quality of identification. With effective teachers analyzing talents more accurately, identification will be enhanced and recognized as being important throughout one’s lifetime(Sahin, 2013).As the process of identifying gifted students grows ever more dependent upon teacher recommendation, it is very important to understand what perceptions teachers hold of gifted students and what experiences have shaped those perceptions (Dyess, 2012).

In  EraslanCapan (2010)’s   research,   the   metaphoric perceptions of the teachers in the research are categorized as follows: 1. Showing high performance, 2. Trying to develop in insufficient conditions, 3. Needing suitable education, 4. Mysterious and needing effort for understanding, 5. Valuable, 6. Open to be controlled and to be directed, 7. Foreseing and giving direction to the future, 8. Making research and looking differently at events, 9. Seeming differently from their peers, 10. Having high capacity, 11. Productive, 12. Creative, 13. All-round. According to Kurnaz (2009), gifted students make positive contribution to the climate of the class. Primary school teachers have no information about the charac-teristics of gifted students. Also,  gifted students have some problems such as being boring at class, being accused of talking too muıch, finding no chance to share intereting matters, found it odd when given wrong answers to questions.

In the research of Levent (2011), according to the teachers of Science Art Center the socio-emotional characteristics of gifted students are as follows: The leadership side of them is strong. They are very interested in social events. They like spending their time with people older than them. They have a developed sense of fairness. They are so mature than what is  expected of them. They say their ideas freely. They have strong emotions and feelings.In the research made by Kıldan (2011), preschool teachers state that gifted children are gifted from their peers, they are curious, researcher and creative; they have high self-confidence and have gifted speaking and understanding ability. Also a greater part of the teachers think that gifted children need special education.In Akar and Akar (2012)’s research teachers think that gifted students are different. It means that teachers characterised gifted students as different from normal students. Also teachers think that gifted students are curious, productive, creative, asocial, hyperactive, diffident and gifted students have behavioral problems.

In the research of Olthouse (2014) studied with 124 preservice teachers, they completed the phrase “a gifted student is _______”using a metaphor and then explaining their choice of metaphor. Qualitative metaphor analysis determined that preservice teachers conceive giftedness as rapid memorization of content knowledge and showy demonstrations of achievement. They believed that excellence is rare and that intelligence is generalizable. Responses were mixed as to whether giftedness is a natural state of being or a process of becoming gifted. There was very little evidence to suggest that preservice teachers focused on the motivational aspect of talent development or the notion that gifted students are likely popular with their peers. In the research of Ozsoy (2014), it was seen that the teachers of Science-Art Center, perceived the term “gifted student” as showing high performance, needing proper education, making an effort to understand, valuable, seeming different from their peers and all  round.  The  gifted  and  talented  are  often also discussed as problem solvers in the interest of national welfare and of the hoped-for development and economic success of individual nations (Persson, 2013).

In Bishofberger (2012)’s research teachers characterized the characteristics of gifted students as Textbook Indicators, Teacher Pleasing characteristics, Non conforming characteristics and Incongruent characteristics. The characteristics such as“Is self-motivated,” “Has a keen sense of humor,’ “Uses expressive speech,” “Has a high interest in school,” etc.might commonly be found in textbooks as indicators of giftedness. These characteristics suggest positive classroom behaviors. As a result, Factor 1 was referred to as Textbook Indicators. The characteristics such as “Does not seem interested in school,” “Often does not bring in homework,” “Gives unexpected, sometimes ‘smart-aleck’ answers,” “Questions rules,” and “Is unmotivated,” etc.might pose a challenge to a teacher.Factor 2 was categorized as Nonconforming. The characteristics such as “Behaves well,” “Learns easily and quickly,” “Is well-liked by classmates,” etc.suggest an easy, affable student. Factor 3 was labeled as Teacher Pleasing. The characteristics such as“Prefers not to work independently,” “Is a follower,” “Has a limited vocabulary,” and “Cannot work independently,”etc.suggest a need for social affiliation and lower verbal ability.Factor 4 was categorized as Incongruent.

In the research of Altıntas and Ozdemir (2014), the opinions of teachers about giftedness and the characteristics of gifted students were taken. Teachers’ answers for the open ended questions are under 7 themes: being different from peers, academic achieve-ment, high capability in certain areas, creativity, personal traits, development features and congenital. When we analyzed the categories under these themes, there were 2 categories under ‘being different from peers’, 15 categories under ‘academic achievement’, 2 categories under ‘high capability in certain areas’, 5 categories under ‘creativity’ theme, 18 categories under ‘personal traits’ theme, 6 categories under ‘development features’ theme and 2 categories under ‘congenital’ theme.In the research of Altıntas and Ilgun (2015), the opinions of parents about the definition of gifted children were taken. The answers given by parents were grouped under 3 themes: Academic features, Personal features and Creativity.

In El Khoury (2014)’s research, the study aimed to explore current elementary teachers' perceptions of the attributes of gifted students. The results revealed various definitions from each school. A definition for giftedness was constructed from the findings which included a combination of three parts: High intellectual ability, high academic performance, and social intelligence. High intellectual ability includes high logical thinking, and that the gifted student's scores on the report cards should be the highest among the class. High academic performance means  that  gifted  students   excel    in    one    or   more academic subject area. Giftedness also encompasses social intelligence, which means that the student should be a natural leader, take charge of small groups, and be able to deal with real life situations that are mainly applicable in Lebanon, for example, the ability to bargain for better prices, and cutting in line to get the service or product faster.

In the research of Kaya (2015), ten teachers working in the USA public schools were interviewed to explore their conceptions of giftedness. As the results of the research, participants reported various characteristics of gifted students. “Questioning”, “thinking different”, “thinking creative”, “above level”, “having different learning style”, “quick” or “faster”, “unique”, “curious”, “sensitive”, and “coping with problems” are some of the common charac-teristics stated by all participants. Some participants also described their gifted students as ‘”smart”, “learn easily”, “having different and original perspectives”, “sometimes alone”, “dealing with social issues”, and “preoccupied”.

The purpose, importance and problem of the study

The purpose of this research is to present the the term of “gifted child” from the point of view of teachers who work at middle schools and high schools. Also This study is of importance to get more information about gifted students and to learn their different characteristics. That is why it can be easy to organize educational environments according to gifted students and their characteristics. In this way the educational needs of gifted students can be met by families of these children and educators. The selection of these children and giving of good guidance to these children are of great importance. For this reason, it is important to know the key characteristics of gifted students. The role of teachers in determining gifted students, selecting gifted students and designing educational environments for them is important.   By moving from these expressions, we can state the problem sentence of the study as ‘what is the term of “gifted child” from the point of view of the teachers?

Research model

The content analysis from qualitative data analysis approaches was used in the present paper. The aim of the content analysis is to reach concepts and correlations which can explain the gathered data. That is why it is necessary to conceptualize the gathered data previously, and afterwards organize them in a logical way to determine the themes that are explaining the data. In qualitative studies, the data are analyzed in 4 phases such as coding the data, finding themes, organizing themes and codes and defining and interpreting the findings (Yıldırım and Simsek, 2008).

The study group

The research was carried out in the spring semester  of  2013-2014 academic year. The research group[EA1] [U2]  of the study  consisted of 300 teachers from middle and high schools.17 physical education teachers, 11 Science and Technology teachers, 11physcic teachers, 11 chemistry teachers, 11 biology teachers, 9 information technologies teachers, 26 religious culture and moral knowledge teachers, 56 Turkish language teachers, 44 English teachers, 10 geography teachers, 25 social sciences teachers, 30 guidance counselors, 39 mathematics teachers participated in the study.While determining the participants, convenience sampling was conducted on account of some practical reasons such as ease of transportation, implementing the study rigorously and ease of communication.

Data collection tool

‘Teacher view form” which was prepared by the researchers for the teachers was used within the scope of this study. ‘Teacher view form’ is composed of 3 open ended questions. The questions are as follows: “Can you explain the term “gifted child?”, “What have been done for the education of gifted children in Turkey?”, “What can you suggest for the education of gifted children? For validity of the view form, in the direction of the idea of an expert, some changes were made and the form was finalized. From the view form, only the question, ‘Can you explain the term “gifted child?” was evaluated because the researchers want all the questions to be examined in details.

Data analysis

The data collected from the open-ended question, “Can you explain the term “gifted child?” included in ‘Teacher view form’ were analyzed qualitatively. The content analysis was used in qualitative data analysis. After the answers given by the teachers to the question were categorized, they were grouped under different themes. The obtained categories and themes were presented in the form of frequency (f) and percentage (%) in tables and the necessary evaluations were made accordingly. The data gathered from 300 teachers were analyzed. While analyzing the data, a coding process was carried out by the researchers based on the idea of an expert. In the coding process, the reliability of the view form was calculated by the method of double coding of Miles and Huberman (1994). Firstly, the answers of the teachers were coded by one of the researchers. 30 forms which include all the codes obtained from the analysis of all forms were selected and they were coded by the other researcher. The reliability of the analyzed question was 0.86. Because the reliability value is higher than 0.70, we can say that there is a compliance between the scorers.

When the tables are analyzed, it is seen that answers of the open ended question were classified under 6 themes. They are “Creativity features, Academic features, Personality features, Physical features, Social features, Congenital features”. In Table 1, it is seen that teachers’ categories under “Creativity features” theme are “curious, original, creative, extraordinary, productive, sees nobody else, larger imaginary world, thinking differently”. Teachers think that gifted students see details that other students do not see, gifted students have larger imaginary world and crazy ideas, gifted students are so curious,  they   produce   new   patterns,   inventions  and estimations, they ask many questions, they are extra-ordinary, they think differently from other people, they look for and find different solution, they differ from society, they produce original products and are creative and productive in academic and social fields.

In Table 2, it  is  seen  that  teachers’  categories  under “Academic features” theme are “regular education is boring to them, are more capable than their peers, need education suitable for their features, their intelligence level is more than average, get success by little effort, tell or understand what they read, establisg relationship between  objects,  are  talented  on  information  processing,   have digital intelligence, successful in every field,have advanced level of speaking ability and extensive vocabulary, have advanced level of problem solving skill, have advanced level of ability in one or more fields, use every field of brain effectively, have different type of learning styles, understand discrete things rapidly, their perception level is different from their peers, rapid understanding of the relations between terms, have their own questions and solutions, high capacity in terms of analyzing and synthesizing, have a good memory, produce project by deducing from events and conditions, understand, learn and apply rapidly, rapid reasoning than their peers, work a lot with little effort in a short time, have knowledge beyond ordinary knowledge, solving problems more analytically, have multiple thinking, need special education”. In this theme, teachers think that gifted students know more things than their peers, they have a developed verbal and numerical intelligence and retentive memory, they have a brilliant intelligence and their IQ level is higher than their peers, they have faster understanding, interpretation, thinking, problem solving ability than their peers,their cognitive and affective abilities are strong and advanced, they succeed in all activities  compared to their peers and they do not need teachers in some aspects, they comprehend things that their normal peers do not comprehend, they are different from their peers in terms of their interests and abilities, they need special education.

In Table 3, It is seen that teachers’ categories under “Personality features” theme are “Asking too many questions,   Having   different   emotional  characteristics, More mature than their peers, Dominant, Having trouble in focusing, Forcing the present conditions, Showing difference in expressing themselves, Stubborn, Having different perceptions, Having more confidence, Having more awareness, Prescient, Contacting between events, High selective perception, Knowing how to listen, Carreful, Deciding fastly, Thinking not focusing on problem but focusing on solution”. In this theme, teachers think that gifted students see the details that the others do not see, gifted students are interrogator, they have high self confidence, their behaviours and ideas are different from other people, they think differently from their peers, they are leaders, they see differently from others, they are stubborn, they see the the results of problems easily, and they find different solutions to problems.

In Table 4, it is seen that teachers’ categories under “Physical features” theme are “being different physically from their peers, Finishing the developmental period fastly, Performing different behaviours, Abnormal in their movements, Hyperactive”. In this theme, teachers think that gifted students perform extraordinary behaviours in the society, they progress quickly, they are hyperactive, they perform sudden behaviours, they are physically different from their peers, they develop fast as children.

In Table 5, it is seen that teachers’ categories under “Social features” theme are “Being in high level in terms of social aspects, not keeping up with society and the rules of society, Creating awareness, Leaders, The weakness in human affairs”. In this theme, teachers think that class and environment are not attractive for gifted students, gifted students cannot fit into the school environment, they live incongruity, they are social, they do not attend the society, they are different socially from their peers.

In Table 6, it is seen that teachers’ categories under “Congenital” theme are “God’s gift, Genetic”. In this theme, teachers think that gifted students are intelligent because their mother and father are intelligent. The genes passing them from their mother and father make them intelligent. Also; some of the teachers claim that gifted students are specially selected children. They think that giftedness is a gift of God.

Teachers’ answers for the open ended question are grouped under 6 themes. They are; Creativity features, Academic features, Personality features, Physical features, Social features, Congenital. When we analyzed the categories under these themes, there were 8 categories under ‘creativity features’, 29 categories under ‘academic features’, 20 categories under ‘personality features’, 5 categories under ‘physical features’ theme, 4 categories under ‘social   features’    theme,    2    categories   under ‘congenital’ theme. The categories under the theme of Creativity features are “curious, original, creative, extra-ordinary, productive, see what others do not see, larger imaginary world, thinking differently”.

The categories under the theme of academic features are “education is boring to them, the more capable than their peers, Needing education suitable for their features, intelligence level is on the average, Suceed by little effort, Tell or understand what they read, Establishing relationship between the objects, Being talented on information processing, Having digital intelligence, Successful in every field, Having advanced level of speaking ability and extensive vocabulary, Having advanced level of problem solving ability, Having advanced level of ability in one or more fields, Using every field of brain effectively, Having different type of learning styles, Understanding discrete things rapidly, The perception level is different from their peers, Rapid understanding of the relations between  terms, Having their own questions and solutions, High capacity in terms of analyzing and synthesizing, Having a good memory, Producing project by deducing from events and conditions, Understanding, learning and applying rapidly, Rapid reasoning than their peers, Working a lot with a little effort    in    a    short   time,   Having   extraordinary knowledge, Solving  problems more analytically, Multiple thinking,  in need of special education”.

The categories under the theme of Personality features are “Asking too many questions, Having different emotional characteristics, having mixed psychological state not seen directly, More mature than their peers, Dominant, Having trouble in focusing, Forcing the present conditions, Showing difference in expressing themselves, Stubborn, Having different perceptions, Having more confidence, Having more awareness, Prescient, Contacting between events, High selective perception, Knowing how to listen, Carreful, Deciding fastly, Thinking not focusing on problem but focusing on solution”. The categories under the theme of Physical features are “being different physically from their peers, Finishing their developmental period fast, Abnormal in their movements, Hyperactive”. The categories under the theme of Social features are “Being in high level in terms of social aspects, Not keeping up with society and the rules of society, Creating awareness, Leaders”. The categories under the theme of Congenital are“God’s gift, Genetic”.

Teachers think that gifted students show high performance in academic, personal, physical, social and creative activities. Teachers think that gifted students need education suitable for their features. They are also in need of special education. Teachers think that gifted students are different physically from their peers. They perform different behaviors. They are abnormal in their behaviours. That is why to understand them, a person needs special effort. Some of the teachers claim that gifted students are specially selected children. They think that giftedness is a gift of God. Gifted students are successfull in every field. The intelligence level of gifted students is on the average. Gifted students succeed with little effort. These sentences mean that gifted students are valuable. Teachers think that gifted students are prescient. Teachers think that gifted students think differently. They ask too many questions. They have different perceptions. Teachers think that gifted students are physically different from their peers. They are hyperactive. Their perception levels are different from their peers. They think differently. From all these findings we can say that our study is parallel with Eraslan Capan (2010) and Ozsoy (2014).

Teachers think that regular education is boring for gifted students, which is parallel with that of Kurnaz (2009).Teachers think that gifted students are leaders and prescient. They are more mature than their peers. They have different emotional characteristics and are more confident. That is parallel with Levent (2011). They have rapid understanding of the relations between terms. This is in line with the study of Kıldan (2011).

In line with this study, Akar and Akar (2012) state that gifted   children   are   abnormal    in    their   movements, hyperactive, do not need regular education. Olthouse (2014) state that gifted students have good memory, they understand, learn and apply rapidly,they show demon-strations of achievement in terms of academic, personal, social and physicial characteristics. From these characteristics we can say that gifted students are good problem solvers. Also these characteristics are of great importance for national welfare and development and economic success of individual nation. This corroborates Persson (2013)’s study.

The present study is parallel with the study of Bishofberger (2012). The studies of Altıntas and Ilgun (2015), Altıntas and Ozdemir (2014) are parallel with the present study in terms of the themes got in both studies. El Khoury (2014) dealt with the combination of three parts: High intellectual ability, high academic performance, and social intelligence. These results are parallel with our results. In the research of Kaya (2015), the characterictics mentioned such as“Questioning”, “thinking different”, “thinking creatively”, “above level”, “having different learning style”, “quick” or “faster”, “unique”, “curious”, “sensitive” and “coping with problems”, ‘”smart”, “learn easily”, “having different and original perspectives”, “sometimes alone” are parallel with the characteristics in the present study. The following suggestions are given in this study:

Suggestions

How much the teachers from different fields recognize and define gifted students can be researched. Thanks to the results from these researches, inservice trainings can be organized for the teachers from different fields. Thus, the awareness of the teahers can be increased. Preservice techers are also important for the future education of gifted students. That is why the awareness of pre service teachers can be searched. The researches ever made like the present study can be brougt together to describe giftedness. Also, considering the characterictics presented in these studies, similar or different characteristics mentioned in the researches are presented. Thus, new characteristics exhibited by gifted students can be learned and educational environments can be organized for different gifted students

The authors have not declared any conflict of interests.