Cognitive demand, skill representation, and curriculum alignment in a ninth-grade physics textbook within the scope of the Century of Türkiye Education Model

This study examined the learning and assessment components in the ninth-grade physics textbook prepared within the scope of the Century of Türkiye Education Model in terms of cognitive depth, scientific process and physics-related skills, assessment structure, and alignment with learning outcomes. Designed as a structured document analysis supported by descriptive frequency analysis, the study analyzed 568 units of analysis identified from activities, experiment/observation tasks, in-text questions, worksheets, performance tasks, self-assessment components, and end-of-unit assessment questions. The units were coded according to the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy, selected scientific process and physics-related skill categories, assessment and evaluation types, and their level of alignment with the 2024 ninth-grade physics learning outcomes. Inter-coder agreement was calculated as 89.4%. The findings showed that the textbook was strongly oriented toward higher-order cognitive processes, with 77.3% of the units classified at the analyzing, evaluating, or creating levels. Evidence-based inference, relating concepts to daily life, and modelling were the most frequently represented skills. Open-ended question/response was the dominant assessment type, whereas multiple-choice questions were rarely used. The alignment analysis indicated that 83.1% of the 557 directly matched units showed high alignment with learning outcomes. However, experimentation, data generation, hypothesis formulation, variable control, graph interpretation, rubrics, and process-oriented assessment tools were represented more limitedly. The study suggests that future textbook development should strengthen the experimental and epistemic dimensions of physics learning while maintaining the textbook’s strong cognitive and contextual orientation.