• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.927-949
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• 2015

The purpose of this study was to find out the difference between importance and performance regarding perception of core competence of gifted education teachers through importance-performance analysis (IPA). One hundred fourteen elementary gifted education teachers including math and science participated in the study. The collected survey data was analyzed with IPA matrix. As the result, firstly, there was significant difference between importance and performance regarding perception of core competence of gifted education teachers. Secondly, core competencies of 'understanding knowledge', 'research and instruction', 'passion and motivation', and 'ethics' are high in both perceptions of importance and performance. However, both 'communication and practices' and 'professional curriculum development' are low. Thirdly, there was a difference in core competence of gifted education teachers between math and science at the competence of 'passion and motivation'. Math gifted education teachers perceived 'passion and motivation' high in both importance and performance while science gifted education teachers perceived its importance low and performance high. In addition, math gifted education teachers showed lower performance compared to its importance in the sub-categories; 'knowledge of gifted development', 'gifted child assessment', 'information gathering and its literacy', and 'creative answers to various questions'. However, science gifted education teachers showed lower performance compared to its importance in sub-categories; 'higher-order thinking skills in its subject', 'teaching methodology for self-directed learning', 'problem behavior of the gifted', and 'counseling the gifted'.