Teachers' curriculum literacy levels and curriculum fidelity

This study aimed to investigate teachers' curriculum literacy levels and the status of curriculum fidelity. The pattern of the research is survey, one of the quantitative research designs. The participants were composed of 449 teachers working at public schools of Ministry of National Education during the 1st semester of 2019- 2020 academic year and the 2nd semester of 2020- 2021 academic year in Gaziantep province Şehitkamil county. As data collection tools, "Personal Information Form"; Curriculum Literacy Scale (Bolat, 2017)" for the curriculum literacy levels and "Curriculum Fidelity Scale (Yaşaroğlu& Manav, 2015) for the curriculum fidelity status were implemented. To analyze the data collected, firstly Kolmogorov- Smirnov test of normality was applied and then mean and standard deviation values, of descriptive statistics, were calculated to determine teachers' curriculum literacy levels and curriculum fidelity. Independent sample T-test to determine whether teachers' curriculum literacy levels and curriculum fidelity differ according to gender and one-way analysis of variance was conducted to determine whether they differ according to the field of teaching, graduated faculty type, length of service and school grades they teach in. Whether there is a relationship between teachers' curriculum literacy level and their curriculum fidelity was analyzed by "Pearson correlation analysis". As a result of the research, teachers' curriculum literacy levels and their curriculum fidelity are high. While the literacy levels of the teachers do not change according to their gender, female teachers' commitment to the curriculum is higher. The teachers with the highest program literacy are Turkish-Turkish Language and Literature teachers. Their fidelity to the curriculum does not differ according to their field of teaching. Curriculum literacy levels of teachers who graduated from faculty of education are higher than teachers who graduated from other faculties. Teachers' fidelity to curriculum does not differ according to faculty they graduated from. As the experience of the teachers increase, their commitment to fidelity to curriculum decrease, while their curriculum literacy levels do not differ according to their professional seniority. The teachers' literacy levels and their fidelity to the curriculum do not differ according to the grade they teach. Finally, it was concluded that there is a positive relationship between teachers' curriculum literacy and their fidelity to the curriculum. In line with these results, it is suggested that researchers could be carried out studies such as an in-depth consideration of curriculum literacy qualifications and fidelity to the curriculum with a holistic approach; a classification of curriculum literacy skills according to educational taxonomies; on the curriculum literacy levels of female teachers and their fidelity to the curriculum with different methods; on the factors affecting teachers' commitment to the curriculum and on the curriculum fidelity of senior teachers and the effects of length of service on their fidelity to curriculum. In addition, it is recommended to conduct studies on revealing curriculum literacy qualification in the education programs of teacher training institutions; planning pre-service and in-service training sessions for curriculum literacy, fulfilling curriculum development in cooperation with the academy and the Ministry of National Education through determining the factors affecting adherence to the curriculum and partnership programs between newly- graduated teachers and senior teachers in order to increase the curriculum fidelity.