Research of pre-service teachers' program literacy levels and metaphorical perceptions of the curriculum

Education plays an important role in the future of individuals and societies. The aim of an efficient education is to make the students gain the objectives of the program. The relationship between the teacher and the program should be dynamic in terms of gaining the goals to the students. The teacher should be able to understand the program, make sense of it, make the necessary decisions and make arrangements in the implementation. So, it is very important for teachers to have curriculum literacy skills and their perspectives on this skill in order to provide a holistic structure between the curriculum and the teacher. In this study, in which pre-service teachers' curriculum literacy levels and metaphorical perceptions about the curriculum hece been examined, a mixed method has been preferred, in which qualitative and quantitative data collection methods presented the findings and results within the same framework. The simultaneous triangulation pattern of the mixed method has been used. The sample selection has been chosen as the "disproportionate stratified sample." Data have been obtained from the second, third and fourth grade students studying at the faculty of education using the disproportionate sampling method. As a result of the research, pre-service teachers see the items, dimensions and general perceptions of the students about the curriculum at a "Good" level and the pre-service teacher sees the curriculum literacy levels of the students at a high level. It has been determined that the perceptions of pre-service teachers regarding literacy and its sub-dimensions of the curriculum, not differ according to the vocational knowledge course that contribute the most to the curriculum knowledge, but show a significant difference according to gender, class level and branch. It has been observed that the literacy levels of the pre-service teachers are high and significantly different in favor of girls in terms of reading and writing dimensions and gender in general. Students' perceptions of curriculum literacy and its sub-dimensions are higher in favor of large classes compared to grade levels. The perceptions of pre-service teachers about literacy and its sub-dimensions of the curriculum are higher in favor of the students of the classroom teaching branch compared to the branches. "Compass" has been the most frequently used metaphor in the metaphors of the education program of the pre-service teachers studying at the faculty of education. This has been followed by the words guide, map, road map, guide, tree, plan, building foundation, life and light. While it has been seen that pre-service teachers ascribed concrete meanings as well as abstract meanings to their education programs, the words that are generally guiding and projector qualities of the concepts come to the fore. As a result of the categorization of the metaphors, the titles "Lodestar", "Lively", "Life facilitating", "Fun", "Useful things" and "Exhausting things" emerged. According to the findings, besides the fact that the expressions related to the education program are mostly expressed in words with the meanings of important, useful, lively and fun, there are also pre-service teachers who see it as tiring things at a very low rate. There is no significant difference between pre-service teachers' educational program literacy levels according to metaphor categories. Accordingly, although the metaphors of the pre-service teachers are different, it is concluded that the literacy levels of the curriculum are similar and there is no significant difference.