A Trial for Curriculum Development: The Effect of Educational Philosophy Curriculum on the Attitudes towards Course and Educational Views

Abstract

In Turkey, Educational Philosophy is a compulsory course for the students of education faculties, which serve the purpose of training the teachers of future generations. Furthermore, in some other programs, students are able to take the course as an elective course. The continuous changes in culture, science, and technology force the curriculum of all courses to be renovated, as in the situation of Educational Philosophy. The current study aims (1) to design a new curriculum for the course of Educational Philosophy, and determine the effect of this design on (2) student attitudes towards the course and (3) the perceptions about educational viewpoints and practices. In the current study, the Taba Model, one of the curriculum development models, was used during the preparation process of the draft. For the evaluation process of the curriculum design, single group pre- and post-test design as one of the quantitative methods was conducted. The Educational Philosophy course was developed through adopting a student-centred design and using the Taba Model. As the result of the curriculum implementation, it was concluded that: (1) The curriculum designed for the study changed the attitudes of learners significantly and positively (2) The curriculum designed for the study decreased the anxiety of the learners towards the course significantly and positively, (3) The curriculum designed for the study changed the beliefs of the learners significantly and positively that they would use these common course standards in their teaching, (4) The curriculum designed for the study made the participant learners get out of traditional [Positivist-Modern] subject- or teacher-centred educational philosophy, (5) The curriculum designed for the study made the participants be familiar with the learner-centred popular-modern [Constructivist] educational philosophy.