The Metacognitive Skills Performed by 6th-8th Grade Gifted Students during the Problem-Solving Process: Gümüşhane Sample

The fact that the gifted students perform their problem-solving activities by using their metacognitive skills will reinforce their ability to correlate among the mathematical concepts as well as developing their understanding and learning mathematics in depth. For this reason, the purpose of this study is to determine and compare the metacognitive skills performed by 6th-8th grade gifted students at the time of their problem-solving process. The case study, one of the qualitative research models, has been used in this study. The data in this study conducted with nine gifted secondary school students were collected by using a think- aloud protocol (interview forms) along with the observation forms. A thematic analysis was performed by making use of the studies in the literature. It was ascertained as the result of the study that the gifted students at different learning levels has exhibited metacognitive skills in all of the problem-solving steps and that the number of the metacognitive skills performed during the problem- solving processes generally increased as the learning levels of the students developed. Moreover, it was also determined that the students, in all of the problem-solving steps, generally felt confident, reviewed their targets and self-evaluated/self-checked at every step of this process.