Gifted students are known to be superior in cognitive ability and motivation comparing to ordinary students. Considering these specialties, gifted students' education should be provided according to their abilities. This research is to investigate how...
Gifted students are known to be superior in cognitive ability and motivation comparing to ordinary students. Considering these specialties, gifted students' education should be provided according to their abilities. This research is to investigate how self-determination motivation and achievement goal orientation influence metacognition and creative problem solving ability of gifted students in secondary school, and if metacognition is working as a mediator for its influence. Any research that investigates on relationship of creativity, motivation and metacognition; the three components of gifted students; provides useful data to actualize gifted students potential and it can be used as an educational guidance.
Research questions for this study are as follows;
First, What is the relationship between self-determination motivation, achievement goal orientation, metacognition and creative problem solving ability?
Second, Does metacognition work as a mediator for its influence?
A research model was designed through reviewing extensive range of former studies and questionnaires were used to answer above mentioned questions. 180 students from a university affiliated school for gifted, were surveyed to measure self-determination motivation, achievement goal orientation, metacognition and creative problem solving ability. 158 students completed designated questionnaire and 6 of them were excluded as the result showed abnormal values. Collected data was processed with SPSS 20.0. The reliability of each scale was examined and descriptive analysis, correlation analysis, two-independent samples t test, multiple regression analysis, three-step mediated regression analysis and Sobel test were also conducted.
The results of the study are summarized as follows.
First, with regard to the correlations analysis, there were positive correlations for; self-determination motivation and metacognition; achievement goal orientation and metacognition; metacognition and creative problem solving ability; self-determination motivation and creative problem solving ability; and achievement goal orientation and creative problem solving ability.
Second, the regression analysis was conducted to find out the influence on relationships between; self-determination motivation and metacognition; achievement goal orientation and metacognition; metacognition and creative problem solving ability; self-determination motivation and creative problem solving ability; and mastery-approach goals in achievement goal orientation and creative problem solving ability. The results showed that each scale influenced each other. However, there was no influence on creative problem solving ability in relation to performance-approach goals in achievement goal orientation.
Third, the mediating effects of metacognition were verified by three-step mediated regression analysis of Baron and Kenny, and the significance of the indirect effect by the mediator was confirmed through the Sobel test. As a result, metacognition was found to play a partially mediating role in intrinsic motivation of self-determination motivation and mastery-approach goals of achievement goal orientation in the relationship with creative problem solving ability. In other words, it directly affects creative problem solving ability and indirectly affects creative problem solving ability through metacognition. In addition, metacognition was found to play a fully mediating role in identification control of self-determination motivation in the relationship with creative problem solving ability. In other words, it has indirect effect on creative problem solving ability through metacognition.
Based on the results of this study, we can see that metacognition is the main variable to improve creative problem solving ability. Metacognition is to understand one’s perceptions and it can be used as a useful strategy in the process of solving problems. Therefore, it suggests that educational opportunities to utilize metacognition to improve creative problem solving ability of gifted students in secondary school, should be provided. Furthermore, since self-determination motivation and achievement goal orientation influence creativity problem solving ability, it is suggested to create an educational environment that can firmly establish them. This research proposes education that develops a strategic aspect of motivation and metacognition, namely, a strategic ability to plan, monitor, control, and evaluate on its own during learning situations. If researches and programs for this are developed and provided to the actual gifted education field, then we expect that gifted students' creative problem solving ability will be enhanced and developed further.