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The New Media Use of Gifted Students and Its Impact on Academic Achievement
JOURNAL OF YOUTH RESEARCHES
modern technological developments in special education of gifted children and young
people, who are privileged of their intelligence and skill levels comparing to their peers, to
take advantage of their potential and make them effective.
The gifted students with high performance than their peers in learning speed, level of le-
arning and interests, (1) general intellectual ability, (2) special academic ability, (3) creative
or productive thought, (4) leadership ability, (5) visual and performing arts, and / or (6)
have potential abilities in the areas of psychomotor ability (Marland, 1972, p.2) deserve
special education and at this point the functions of educational institutions is crucial.
Science and Art Centers (BİLSEM) are unique public education for the education of gifted
students in Turkey. BİLSEM, which provides education for the students in various levels
depending on the categorization of Ministry of National Education, is an independent
educational institution open to gifted students who attend primary and secondary edu-
cation institutions. BİLSEM focuses on individual abilities of gifted students and aims to
develop their capacities at the highest level through not hindering their training in formal
educational institutions (MEB, 2007). The students who have achieved success in the
two-stage examination in the field of group screening, general talent, visual arts and mu-
sic from the first year of elementary school can get education at BİLSEM as well as their
own schools from the second year of elementary school to the last year of high school.
The students who are educated in BİLSEM, where the Fatih Project is implemented with
computer assisted training, receive multidisciplinary education in addition to structured
training in ‘support training’, ‘individual talent awareness program’, ‘special talent deve-
lopment program’ and ‘project training’.
This study focuses on the use of internet and new media by gifted students and the effect
of new media on the learning and achievement of gifted students in İzmit BİLSEM. The
study aims to reveal the contribution of new media to the potential of gifted students who
take the advantage of the computers, internet and new media platform possibly more
than their peers on the practical use of these platforms with respect to their aims.
Method
This study, which examines the use of new media by gifted students and its effect on the
learning process and the level of achievement, has been carried out with semi-structured
interview technique in the context of qualitative research approach. For this purpose, 10
students, 5 females and 5 males, were interviewed in order to determine whether the use
of new media differs according to their sex. 10 students are volunteers and selected. This
institution has been selected because one of the researchers work in this institution and
this provides some advantages of data collection process of the research. It has been
hypothesized that the population between 16-24 years of age in Turkey is the intensive
user of internet and the project group students may be using internet and new media plat-
forms more frequently. The interviews with the facilities of the semi-structured interview
technique gave the participants the opportunity to get detailed answers to systematic use
