The Trend Analysis of Graduate Level Curriculum and Instruction Studies in Turkiye

Educational processes are reshaped by developing technologies, economic conditions, and cultural dynamics. Educational programs should be designed to provide the necessary skills for the future of individuals and societies. Careful analysis of these transformation processes is essential to improve the effectiveness of the systems. There is a need for trend analysis of the studies carried out so far in the field of curriculum and instruction in order to contribute to curriculum development studies, educational policy-making processes and to enable scientists to conduct more comprehensive literature review. Therefore, this study is designed to determine the trends in subject and research methods used in the graduate theses completed in the department of Curriculum and Instruction in Turkey. This research was carried out using the case study approach. The collected data were analyzed using trend analysis and content analysis. Findings revealed that the most researched subject is curriculum, and the least researched subject is curriculum development. Quantitative descriptive research is the most preferred research method and questionnaires are the most common data collection tool. Educators and students were mostly selected as samples in studies. Usually, the preferred sample size range is between 101-500 in graduate theses. It is recommended that researchers include observation, document analysis and achievement test for the data collection to ensure data diversity. Finally, it is surprising that graduate theses written in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction are rarely conducted on the curriculum development. It is strongly recommended for future graduate studies to accommodate curriculum development as a subject.