International Teachers' Judgment of Gifted Mathematics Student Characteristics.

This study examined the differences and similarities of teachers' perceptions of gifted mathematics students in South Korea, Turkey, and the United States. A survey instrument called the Teachers' Judgments of Gifted Mathematics Student Characteristics (Ficici, 2003) was used to collect data from 947 high school mathematics teachers. A factor analysis resulted in 3 factors: School Smart Mathematics Students, Mathematics Perspective for the Real World, and Creative Problem Solver.

The findings of this study suggest that teachers who taught higher grade levels were less likely to value the 3 factors. Teachers who taught mathematics longer were more likely to value all 3 factors. Male teachers were less likely to value Mathematics Perspective for the Real World than female teachers. Teachers who had higher degrees were less likely to value School Smart Mathematics Students.

In the United States, teachers who taught mathematics longer were more likely to value Creative Problem Solvers and Mathematics Perspective for the Real World. United States teachers valued the Creative Problem Solvers factor the lowest of the 3 countries, although experienced teachers valued it more than inexperienced teachers. Turkish mathematics teachers valued all 3 factors more than teachers in the other 2 countries. South Korean teachers valued School Smart Mathematics Students and Mathematics Perspective for the Real World factors the least.

Turkish teachers favored a variety of mathematics teaching strategies more than American and South Korean teachers. South Korean teachers valued practicing in class as an effective approach, abstractness of mathematics, sufficiency of basic computational skills to teach mathematics, and learning mathematics as a set of algorithms or rules more than American teachers. American teachers felt less strongly about the abstractness of mathematics than did other teachers. American teachers felt more strongly about students' natural talent for mathematics than South Korean teachers. American teachers also felt more strongly than other teachers about using more than one representation to teach a mathematics topic.

REFERENCE

Ficici, A. (2003). Teachers' judgments of gifted mathematics student characteristics. Unpublished instrument. Storrs, CT: University of Connecticut.

Abdullah Ficici received his M.A. and Ph.D. in educational psychology with a concentration in gifted and relented from the University of Connecticut. He currently teaches algebra, geometry, and trigonometry at Putnam Science Academy in Putnam, Connecticut. He has also taught mathematics in Turkey and Pakistan. His research interests are gifted education, creativity, and mathematics education. E-mail: [e-mail]