Summary The current research looks into the level of misconceptions that are present in a population of university students. This level of misconception will be correlated with three predictor variables namely formal education, personal involvement and future prospects in the education sector. University students are chosen as the sample population because they will be the future stakeholders of our society. Their understanding of giftedness and gifted education would determine the fully actualization of gifted individuals.

Gifted education: myths and misconception among Malaysian university students
Introduction
The current research was inspired by an article entitled 'Tracing the brain drain trend' (Fong, 2010) which stats that this phenomenon of brain drain is rapidly rising in the Malaysian context. It delivered an alarming message by depicting the 100-fold increase of Malaysian emigration rates compared to the worldwide 2.4% increase. This loss of talent had significantly impaired the country's growth in almost every sector including economics, education, and scientific advancement and etc. Malaysia's vision of becoming a developed country by 2020, proposed by former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad would be in vain if this issue of talent retention and recruitment is not resolved. This is because a developing country like Malaysia would certainly need as many talented and gifted people as possible in order to achieve optimum development. The article also quoted from the National Economic Advisory Council (NEAC) on the New Economic Model (NEM) saying “we are not developing talent and what we do have are leaving”. This article signifies the importance of a society to develop talent and also allow the flourish of gifted individuals. Talent can be defined as an explicit exhibition of giftedness where giftedness acts as the natural abilities and is influenced by interpersonal & environmental catalysts and also a factor of chance (Gagné, 2002). Only when all of these conditions are met, only then will a gifted individual go through the developmental process that leads to successful expression of talent. Identification and development of giftedness is crucial because advancement of humanity itself is triggered by genuine innovation and the fruits of the intellectual, creative mind. Gifted individuals possess the ability to deconstruct problems effectively to come out with the best solutions. However, research on giftedness including identification, development and even the definition and the terminology itself is still debatable.
Definition of giftedness
Countless debates on giftedness itself have sparked numerous researches and literature in the area has provided the area with ingenious, unique views towards the topic. The current research will present a few definitions of giftedness. One of the longstanding, prominent definitions of giftedness would be the assessment of a person’s Intelligence quotient (IQ) through IQ testing. This concept of intellectual of giftedness was introduced by Lewis Terman in 1920 but was later refuted by a lot of later research which looked into the multi-facet theories of giftedness and intelligence e.g. Kaufman(2009) who presented a comparison of varying IQ scores attained by the same students when assessed using different IQ measuring instruments. This proved the lack in validity and reliability of IQ score alone as a predictor to giftedness and intelligence.
Other alternative theories would be like Dabrowski's (1964) theory of positive disintegration and overexcitabilities framework of giftedness suggests that giftedness is defined when individuals exhibit an innate, natural heightened ability to detect and respond to certain stimuli which includes Psychomotor, Sensual, Intellectual, Imaginational, and Emotional domains. This would suggest that giftedness can be expressed in various domains ranging from academics (Intellectual) to even designing an effective way to tidy one's own room in the fastest way possible (psychomotor). Individuals may possess different degree of action potential in those domains but gifted individuals have high affinity towards all domains. However, other theorists like Renzulli (1986) proposed the three-ring conception of giftedness which focuses on three traits including having above average ability, creativity and task commitment. These traits interact and complement each other in order for an individual to exhibit giftedness. This suggests that creativity and task commitment are crucial in giftedness even though advanced abilities are present already.
Myths and misconceptions The sheer amount of different definitions and opinions on giftedness and gifted education itself is confusing on its own. Therefore it is understandable that misconceptions and myths would be present significantly in any given population. The efficiency of gifted education is often doubted by the general public. Pautova’s (2009) research stated that Russian parents showed disbelief in the beneficial implication that formal gifted education would bring by insisting that the talented could only fully achieve their potential under a nurturing, family based environment. This is believed to be due to the Russian’s public emphasis on one’s socioeconomic status in the identification of gifted individuals. General characteristics of gifted individuals are also misinterpreted by the general public. Gifted individuals are often viewed as less sociable or maladaptive in their daily environment (Porter, 2006). However, researchers Grenier (1985) and Li & Adamson (1995) pointed out that there are no significant difference in the dimensions of sociability and self-esteem when comparing gifted siblings and their non-gifted siblings. These myths and the prevalence of them in a population would certainly impair the opportunities that a gifted individual can attain in an academic and societal setting to develop adequately. The present researcher hopes to examine the prevalence of these myths in a Malaysian setting to provide preliminary statistical data for further research like developing a community awareness program to educate the general public.
Two main dimensions, formal education and personal involvement are identified in the present study towards this understanding. Formal education is defined as the enrollment or completion of courses/subjects like educational psychology and courses on giftedness & gifted education. Enrolment in educational psychology is a precursor towards the understanding of giftedness in an academic setting. This is evident in universities like HELP university. The stern regulation of a prerequisite in educational psychology in order to enroll in giftedness education subjects shows the importance of educational psychology as a fundamental requirement for the greater understanding of giftedness and gifted education. On the other hand, personal involvement is defined as the participation of the population in programs that provide an outlet for gifted individuals to be identified and also to showcase their abilities through appropriate guidance. A few examples of these programs would be like the PERMATApintar program introduced by the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Centre for Gifted Youths in 2008 and the Penilaian Tahap Satu (PTS) or the Level One Evaluation that was administered to Malaysian standard three students from 1996-2000. University students are in the front line of a nation's development and many of them will go on to be educators, parents and policy makers of the country. This applies especially to students who have future prospects in the education sector because it is of most importance that these future educators are able to identify and develop gifted individuals. In such, the current research proposed 3 main research questions (a) Will previous enrollment in formal education aid in better understanding of giftedness and gifted education? (b) Will personal involvement in gifted awareness and enrichment conferences/workshops aid in better understanding of giftedness and gifted education? and (c) Will university students that have prospects of future careers in education sectors have better understanding of giftedness and gifted education?
Lee’s (1999) phenomenological research on teacher’s implicit attitude indicated the limited identifications of giftedness in the education sector. This signifies the lack of common understanding that worryingly extends to trained education professionals. In addition, Hunsacker (1994) proposed two main conflicts in the education system on the topic of giftedness. This includes the incongruent of theoretical believes versus actual practice of educators & the conflict of definition on giftedness between the local school system and the educators’ personal beliefs. All these conflict of values impairs the education system to effectively identify and develop gifted individuals. Therefore, it is important to start assessing the level of misconception from a university level because these future leaders would determine the development of the potential in gifted individuals. Past researchers like Troxclair (2013) concluded that undergraduate students in his sample population possess contradicting attitudes and insufficient knowledge in the support and facilitation of gifted children. This is especially seen in the areas of within-class acceleration and differentiation strategies. Another research that utilized a sample of undergraduate students looked into three different dimensions of perception towards giftedness (Bain, Choate and Bliss, 2006). Their research concluded that undergraduate students that have future prospects as educators still had a relatively high level of misconception towards giftedness especially on the subject of delinquency & school dropout of gifted education.
The aim of this research would be to determine the underlying understanding of the university students about giftedness and gifted education. The relationship between level of misconceptions with education & public awareness or involvement will also be assessed because it is crucial to identify the effectiveness of these programs in developing a better understanding towards giftedness and gifted education. Three hypotheses are proposed as follows (a) Previous enrollment in formal education would aid in better understanding of giftedness and gifted education, (b) Previous personal involvement in gifted awareness and enrichment conferences/workshops would aid in better understanding of giftedness and gifted education and (c) University students that have prospects of future careers in education sectors have better understanding of giftedness and gifted education.
Methodology
Design
This present research will utilize a 2x2x2 correlational design. Three predictor variable (formal education, personal involvement and future prospects in education sector), will be correlated with the score obtained from the questionnaire. The criterion variable will be divided into the five dimensions in the questionnaires.
Participants
The population will be sampled though convenience sampling. The questionnaires would be distributed randomly throughout HELP University to a sample population of 100 students. Convenience sampling is chosen as the sampling technique because the sample population is readily accessible so they will be recruited through random distribution of the questionnaires.
University students will be chosen as the sample population because they would be future educators, parents and policy makers of the society. These roles will make a significant impact on the identification and development of the gifted population and gifted education. Therefore, it is important to ensure that university student’s posses optimal knowledge in this area.

Material
This correlational study will be utilizing Gagné & Nadeau’s (Gagné, 1991) 34-item instrument entitled Opinions about Gifted individuals and Their Education which is on a 5-point Likert scale (Appendix B). The instrument categorized attitude towards giftedness into six factors namely needs and support (Questions 1, 9, 11, 14, 15, 24, 30 and 32), resistance to objections (Questions 3, 4, 5, 12, 16, 18, 23, 26, 27 and 28), social value (Questions 13, 17, 25 and 33), rejection (Questions 19, 22 and 31), ability grouping (Questions 2, 6, 20 and 21) and school acceleration (7, 8, 10, 29 and 34). High scores on the resistance to objections and rejection factors would signify a negative attitude towards giftedness thus more misconceptions. Higher scores on needs and support, social value, ability grouping and school acceleration would indicate a positive attitude towards giftedness thus more understanding. To elaborate, means of 2.0 or below on each factor will be an indication of serious misconceptions while means above 2.00 and below 2.75 will mean moderate misconceptions. In contrast, means above 3.25 and below 4.00 shows a moderate understanding and means above 4.00 would mean a high level of understanding. (Chessman, 2010).
Educational background of the university students will then be collected. Previous enrollment in formal education and giftedness awareness programs like gifted education conferences will be examined in line with future prospects in the education sector (Appendix C).
Procedure
The questionnaire will be distributed randomly to participants in the university to ensure confidentiality. The questionnaires will be distributed and collected back on the spot.

Statically analysis
A 2x2x2 MANOVA will be used to compare the different scores between each dimensions and predictor variables. MANOVA is chosen because multiple comparisons are required to compare and contrast the correlation between five dimensions of the criterion variable and the three predictor variable.