Determining the perceptions of teachers' instructional program literacy levels

The aim of this study was to reveal the dimensions of curriculum literacy and to determine the perception of teachers' curriculum literacy levels. This research design was exploratory sequential mixed methods design and was conducted with primary, secondary and high school teachers teaching in public schools in 14 different districts of Ankara between Spring 2017 – Spring 2019. In the qualitative part of the research, qualitative data obtained from 181 teachers with open-ended questionnaire and from 18 teachers through semi-structured interviews were analyzed by content analysis. In the quantitative part of the research, quantitative data were collected from 713 teachers through the "Curriculum Literacy Perception Scale". To analyze quantitative data, descriptive statistics, independent sample t test, one-way analysis of variance, kolmogorov smirmov test were used. According to the findings obtained from the research, it was concluded that Curriculum Literacy consists of a four-dimensional structure. These dimensions were named as a) recognizing the curriculum, b) implementing the curriculum, c) querying the curriculum and d) valuing the curriculum. Curriculum Literacy Perception Scale developed according to these dimensions consists of 38 items. As a result of the study, it was concluded that teachers perceive themselves as curriculum literate in all dimensions. It was concluded that the teachers had the highest average scores in the dimension of valuing the curriculum, and the lowest average scores in the dimension of querying the curriculum. The results showed that in-service training activities related to curriculum and their participation in curriculum development studies were effective in the teachers' scores obtained from the Curriculum Literacy Perception Scale. In addition, it was observed that while the importance given to the curriculum and the frequency of benefiting from the curriculum increased, curriculum literacy perception scores increased. Keywords: curriculum literacy, curriculum literacy perception scale, teachers' curriculum competencies