Since successful and effective teachers help students enhance their science learning, researchers have tried to develop teachers' teaching abilities (Abell, 2007; Magnusson, Krajcik, & Borko, 1999; Shulman, 1986). Teachers need to know subject matter knowledge related to their field and some other knowledge including knowledge of instructional principles, classroom management, learner and learning, and educational goals. In the classroom environment, all these knowledge interact to each other and they create together teachers’ teaching skill which is called pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) (Abell, 2007). Shulman (1986) developed PCK as a model being used as a theoretical framework to investigate teacher knowledge. Magnusson et al. (1999) modified this model and they explained that PCK have five components which provide a more extensive view of PCK.

PCK has been studied since 1986 but there are many unanswered questions about science teachers’ PCK and its components (Abell, 2008). A similar situation is also true for gifted students’ teachers. Education for gifted students is more ignored field of special education. Gifted and talented people have some abilities and demonstrate high performance in single or more than a few areas such as general intellectual ability, specific academic ability, creative or productive thinking, leadership ability, visual and performing arts, and psychomotor ability (Marland Report, 1971). Although successful teachers have some characteristics and competencies, teachers of gifted students must have special expertise that provides students with comprehensive and effective professional development opportunities (Croft, 2003). Research on gifted students indicated that the teachers don’t have enough knowledge to meet the needs of gifted students (Park & Oliver, 2009). In addition, to our knowledge there is no any study focusing on topic-specific nature of PCK of teachers of gifted students. Thus, teachers of gifted students need to be more topic-specific educational research rather than general knowledge about gifted students and activities (Park & Oliver, 2009).

The purpose of this study was to examine PCK of teacher of gifted students. The present study aimed to investigate the following research question: what is the nature of PCK of science teacher of gifted students in using science activities? In order to achieve the purpose, this study was conducted with the teacher of gifted students and Magnusson et al.’s (1999) PCK model and components; teacher orientation to science teaching (OST), knowledge of curriculum (KoC), knowledge of learners (KoL), knowledge of instructional strategies (KoIS), and knowledge of assessment (KoA) were adopted in this study. 

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