Teachers' opinions on the level of support for 21st Century skills in primary school Turkish curriculum

The aim of this study is to determine the level of supporting 21st century skills in the reading learning area of Primary School Turkish Curriculum according to the opinions of classroom teachers. The data in the study were obtained with the "Perception Scale for the Level of Supporting 21st Century Skills of Turkish Curriculum" developed by the researcher. While developing the scale, exploratory factor analysis was performed and it was seen that the scale had three sub-dimensions explaining 82,247% of the total variance. The fit indices obtained by confirmatory factor analysis were found to be within the desired limits and the values found confirmed that the model was appropriate for the observed structure. The Cronbach Alpha internal consistency coefficient calculated for the whole scale was found to be .99. The 55-item five-point Likert-type scale was administered to 505 primary school teachers working in Malatya in the 2022-2023 academic year, who were selected by disproportionate cluster sampling method. Since the data were found to be normally distributed, parametric tests were used in the analysis process. As a result of the research, according to the opinions of classroom teachers, it was seen that the Primary School Turkish Curriculum supports life and career skills at a high level; learning and innovation skills at a high level; and information, media and technology skills at a medium level. It was determined that teachers' opinions showed significant differences in all sub-dimensions of the scale according to gender variable. Significant differences were found in favour of male teachers in life and career skills and learning and innovation skills, and in favour of female teachers in information, media and technology skills. According to the education level variable, it was found that teachers' opinions showed a significant difference in favour of teachers with postgraduate education only in the sub-dimension of information, media and technology skills. It was determined that teachers' opinions did not show a significant difference in the sub-dimensions of the scale according to the working settlement unit variable. According to the 21st century skills awareness level variable, teachers' opinions differed significantly in the sub-dimensions of life and career skills, learning and innovation skills, and information, media and technology skills. According to the grade level variable, it was determined that teachers' opinions differed significantly only in the sub-dimension of information, media and technology skills between 1st grade and 3rd grade in favour of 1st grade, between 1st grade and 4th grade in favour of 1st grade, between 2nd grade and 4th grade in favour of 2nd grade. There was a weak negative relationship between teachers' professional seniority and their life and career skills mean scores and between their professional seniority and their learning and innovation skills mean scores. There was a weak positive relationship between teachers' professional seniority and their mean scores on the information, media and technology skills sub-dimension, and there was no significant relationship between their professional seniority and their mean scores on the scale. Based on the results of the research, it is recommended that the learning outcomes related to information, media and technology skills should be included more when revising the existing curriculum and developing new curriculum.