Internal Coherence Across the Components of Türkiye's 2024 History Curriculum

Abstract

This study examines internal coherence among the learning outcomes/process components, content framework, teaching and learning practices, and evidence of learning in Türkiye's 2024 History Curriculum for Grades 9–11. The study employed qualitative document analysis of the official and final curriculum, with 38 learning-outcome-based analytical clusters as the units of analysis. Data were recorded using the researcher-developed Curriculum Component Alignment Analysis Form (CCA-AF). Each component pair was coded for content alignment and, where both compared components prescribe student activity, for alignment in cognitive demand and discipline-specific performance. Each pair was classified as full alignment, partial alignment, or misalignment. A dimension was coded as fully aligned only when every required element of the outcome was explicit in the compared component, and as partially aligned when an element was retained only in part (for example, a required operation was not named in the assessment task or criteria). A second, independent coder assessed 23 of the 38 outcomes (60.5%); exact agreement was 90.1% (228 of 253 decisions), chance-corrected coefficients were κ = .70 and α = .70, and all disagreements were resolved by consensus. Data was analyzed through deductive content analysis. Under the study's decision rules, all relationships between learning outcomes and content, learning outcomes and teaching, and content and teaching were fully aligned (100%); for the content framework, this refers to content correspondence only. By contrast, full alignment declined to 63.2% for learning outcomes–evidence of learning and teaching–evidence of learning relationships. Alignment remained broadly stable across grade levels. The principal break in internal coherence therefore occurred in the transition from teaching to evidence of learning. Curriculum developers should make assessment criteria for multi-stage outcomes as explicit as the corresponding teaching practices.