The relationship between the teachers' curriculum literacy and attitudes about professional development

The teaching profession has a dynamic structure. In the rapidly developing and changing information age, teachers also have to renew themselves and develop professionally. It is expected that the curriculum literacy levels of teachers who attach importance to professional development and try to keep up with age requirements are high. This research aims to determine the relationship between teachers' curriculum literacy and their attitudes toward professional development. This research was designed with the relational research method. The study population of this research consists of teachers who actively work in public schools affiliated with the Kocaeli Provincial Directorate of National Education in the 2022-2023 academic year. The sample of the study consists of 576 volunteer teachers (398 female and 178 male; 61 pre-school, 121 primary school, 205 secondary school, and 189 high school level) from different schooling levels, genders, and age groups selected to represent the above-mentioned universe. In this research, the personal information form, "Teachers' Curriculum Literacy Scale" (developed by Yar-Yıldırım (2020)), and "Attitude Scale About Professional Development" (developed by Torff, Sessions, and Byrnes (2005) and adapted by Özer and Beycioğlu (2010)) used as data collection tool, In the analysis of the data, the Pearson Correlation coefficient was used to determine the relationship between the variables, descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation, median, minimum, maximum) to describe the data, and one-way ANOVA with the independent samples t-test to compare the differences between the means. The findings of the study are as follows: Low level of positive correlation between teachers' attitudes about professional development and curriculum literacy knowledge and skill sub-dimensions; It has been observed that there is a positive medium-level relationship with the attitude sub-dimension. A positive, moderate, and statistically significant correlation was found between teachers' total curriculum literacy score and their attitudes about professional development. The curriculum literacy level of the teachers is above average and high. While there was no statistically significant difference between the curriculum literacy of the teachers and the categories of age, gender, years of service, and schooling levels, a difference was found in favor of the graduate teachers in the curriculum literacy skill sub-dimension and the total score in the education level category. Teachers' attitudes toward professional development are above average and high. While there was no significant difference between teachers' attitudes about professional development and gender, education level, years of service, and schooling levels, a statistically significant difference was found in the age category. The findings obtained from the research were discussed in line with the studies in the literature. Considering that the attitude toward professional development is related to the curriculum literacy levels of teachers, suggestions have been made on issues such as carrying out studies aimed at ensuring the continuity of professional development studies and increasing their productivity, and carrying out activities to improve teachers' curriculum literacy levels. In addition, suggestions for other researchers are also included. In addition, suggestions were made to the researchers that studies with a larger population and sample could be conducted, and qualitative studies using data collection tools such as observation and interviews that allow for more in-depth analysis could be conducted. Keywords: Curriculum Literacy, Professional Development, Attitude Toward Professional Development