Türk Milli Eğitim Sisteminde Bilgi Okuryazarlığı Gereksinimlerinin Karşılanması

Abstract

Information literacy, one of the basic skills of the 21st century, is among the educational objectives of the countries. Information literacy can be defined as a way, method, and ability to use all the necessary tools and technologies in this path in order to retrieve information in accordance with the requirements. Information literacy skills intended to be transferred to the students within the education system aim to enable the students to be successful as information users throughout life not only during their education but also in their everyday life. Teaching information literacy skills and promoting students to gain experience will be possible with the curricula. While recent studies in Turkey have highlighted the improvement of the information skills of students and teachers more, changing technological developments and school libraries, there are no studies handling the relation of the curricula with the concept of information literacy. The main aim of this research is to put forward the activities performed with the purpose of encouraging the students to gain information literacy skills through curricula and propose solutions within the frame of the elements influencing Turkish National Educational System. Our basic hypothesis is that the reasons for the inadequacy of information literacy skills of secondary students are related to the insufficient of national education policies, curricula, classroom implementations of teachers for students and school libraries. Within the scope of the research, firstly the National Educational Councils, Strategic Plans of Ministry of National Education, Lifelong Learning Strategy Documents and Action Plans of Ministry of National Education and Tenth Development Plan were examined. Elements related to the development of information literacy skills were analyzed and tried to be identified within the National Educational Policies. Secondly, 13 curricula of 9th grade common courses were analyzed in terms of information literacy elements. Lastly, in Ankara, in 11 science high schools in total, 389 students attending the 9th grade and 197 teachers tutoring these courses were interviewed between 2 - 22nd May 2017. In the study, quantitative and qualitative research methods were used together in accordance with the descriptive method, content analysis and surveys were made in data collection phase. In conclusion, it has been found out that documents which have an impact on Turkish National Educational System do not include the necessary regulations to provide students with information literacy skills as a whole. Information literacy elements most frequently incorporated in the curricula have been determined to be “identification of information problem”, selection and evaluation of knowledge”; while, less involved elements have been identified to be “recording information” and “encouraging the use of information centers”. In the results of the surveys applied to the teachers have remarked that element of “learning and gaining knowledge” in the curriculum is sufficient; on the other hand, they stated that “enabling the competency to produce scientific knowledge” is insufficient. While paying attention to the “accuracy of the content” in student researches mostly, teachers pay less attention to the “number of the used sources”. Teachers state that they feel more self- confident in “use of data base”; whereas, they feel less self-confident in “making a citation and writing a bibliography”. In the teaching process, teachers need library support to large extent. Moreover; even though students have generally graded their research skills as “good”, the rates of those who graded as “average” and low” are close. Results of the student surveys have indicated that "printed resources" are mostly used in the courses. “How to make a homework research” is the least handled topic. While choosing research topics for their homework, students are paying most attention to "stimulate curiosity and interest", at least to "increase knowledge and skill”. When students do their homework and make a research, they use "books and textbooks" mostly as a source of information. While “Internet” has been identified to be the mostly used information channel used by the students, the least used information channel has been found out to be the “library”. Students have also asserted that they feel more self-confident in "using search engines in the Internet and using electronic information resources"; whereas, they feel less self-confident in “library use”. Students are meticulous mostly about the “accuracy of the information” while making a research. Our hypothesis has been proven in accordance with the results of the research. A model proposal and recommendations involving the current situation and future plans to resolve the problems were developed within the scope of the study. There is a need for sophisticated researches examining the relationships between information literacy and teaching programs that are of great significance in raising the future generations.