The School and Science and Art Center from the Perceptions of Gifted Students

The perceptions of gifted students about different environments in which they receive education are important for creating the right learning environments for them. Thus, the aim of this study is to map the perceptions of gifted students about school and Science and Art Center (SAC) through metaphors. One of the qualitative research models called the phenomenological model was used in the study. This research was carried out with 63 students who were identified as gifted and enrolled in the Science and Art Center in Siirt province during the spring semester of the 2017-2018 academic year. In order to elicit students’ perceptions about concepts of “School” and “SAC”, a form with the statements “School is like………., because……….” and “SAC is like………., because……….” was given to the students. Content analysis was used to analyze the data. Findings revealed that gifted students produced 30 different metaphors related to the concept of “school” and 31 different metaphors related to “SAC” concept. Similar metaphors in relation to the “School” and “SAC” concepts were observed to have been used such as second home, home of education, entertainment center and useful book. However, it was determined that the environment in school and SAC didn’t form completeness, that’s to say, the school was expressed with both negative and positive metaphors while SAC was totally mentioned with positive metaphors.