Determining new trends with regard to the studies in curricula and instruction field

The aim of this study is to determine the new trends concerning curricula and instruction. The articles that are published in journals of SSCI and ERIC databases are taken into the scope of this study. The new trends regarding relevant literature are tried to be identified by analysing 3079 articles in total through the content analysis method. Also, the articles that are taken into the scope of the study are limited with the articles published between years of 2005 and 2014. The articles, throughout the study are analysed according to certain criteria like published year, method, journals that articles published, research subjects and sample population. The results of the study reveal that qualitative methods have been used more frequently in the studies carried out in 2014. Besides, it is clearly seen in the findings that articles are carried out with teachers as sampling population. Most of the articles are carried out as a case study and interview forms, questionnaires and documents are the main data collection instruments preferred to be used.


Introduction
There have been rapid changes in certain areas of today's knowledge society and it is certain that expectations and needs of individuals are shaped according to these changes.There is no doubt that the only way to meet present needs of individuals is apparently possible along with education systems and curricula.This is why both education system and the curriculum developed accordingly should be in a position to reflect needs of individuals as well as changes occurring in certain areas (Filiz, 2014;Uzunboylu & Hursen, 2008;Wolf, 2006;Balci, 2012;Gokmenoglu, 2011;Selcuk, 2014).The concept of 'curriculum' which is originally a Latin word was used in the meaning of 'racetrack' in the past, however; today it is treated as an abstract concept and defined as planned learning that covers the necessary knowledge that a school is responsible for (Seker, 2014;Kumral, 2011;Iscan, 2012;Karadag, 2009).In fact, the curricula have an important place in determining a country's educational policy process and are also a key to determine and shape a country's education system (Ozdemir, 2009;Ozan & Kose, 2014;Lee, 2009;Diaz-Barriga, 2005).Along with all these, curricula have attracted attention as a research topic recently all over the world (Gomleksiz& Bozpolat, 2013;Gokmenoglu, 2011;Uysal, 2014;Shih, 2008;Bikmaz et. al., 2013).Determining in what direction research regarding curricula and instruction have shown changes and improvement will shape the research and help gain even more significance in the future (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2007;Hulten, 2013;Hsu, 2005;Joy, 2007).Likewise, determining tendencies concerning the field sheds light for the researchers in the process of determining research topics (Lee, Wu & Tsai, 2009;Chang & Tseng, 2010;Englund, 2006;Mallki, 2014;Liu & Chen, 2013).
When the research regarding determining new trends in the field of curricula and instruction is taken into account, it could be seen that Bikmaz et. al. (2013), examined doctorate theses concerning curricula.Bikmaz et. al. (2013), in their examination have found that Ph.D. theses carried out on the field of curricula have shown increase in number lately.Further, the findings obtained from the studies have also indicated that mostly mixed method has been used recently in the field.Gomleksiz and Bozpolat (2013), on the other hand, have analysed 243 Master theses and 48 Ph.D. theses through content analysis method and have also found that most of the studies are about curriculum evaluation.It is also indicated that there is a tendency towards using experimental, qualitative and mixed methods in the theses.Ozan and Kose (2014) have examined the articles about curricula and instructions published in years between 2007 and 2011 and have drawn the attention to the writers of the articles, since they are mainly written by single writers or co writers.Besides, Ozan and Kose (2014) have found that in their research, questionnaires are the most preferred data collection instruments and undergraduate students are the most used study group.Saracaloglu and Dursun (2010) have examined 59 MA theses and 13 Ph.D. theses written on the field of curriculum evaluation and have indicated that questionnaires, aptitude tests and attitude scales are more frequently in use as a data collection instrument.However, when the literature is reviewed, it is discovered that although studies about curriculum and instruction have gained significance, there is not sufficient research in the field on determining new trends.It is also discovered that studies carried out are more about examining MA and Ph.D. theses.It is, nevertheless, thought that only examining theses through content analysis in the process of determining new trends regarding curricula and instruction is not enough and there is no doubt that there is a big gap in that sense.Therefore, the aim of this 79 study is to determine new trends by carrying out a detail analysis of studies about curricula and instruction.For this reason, answers are looked for the following questions: 1. How are the research methodologies change overtime and which research methodologies are more frequently used in them?
2. In which journals of SSCI and ERIC databases are the studies published?
3. How is subject distribution of the studies taken into the current research?
4. Which research methodologies are used in the studies taken into the current research?
5. How is the distribution between sample population and research methodologies of the studies that are taken into the current research?
6. Which research models are used in the studies taken into the current research?
7. Which data collection instruments are mostly used according to the research methodologies implemented in the studies that are taken into the current research?

Method
This study is a content analysis which evaluates studies about curricula through content analysis.The main characteristics of content analysis are that it examines only textual data for design and structure, develops categories and is used for grasping research methodology and text meaning (Vitouladiti, 2014;Elo, 2008;Nelson, 1994;Hayes, 2007).In addition, content analysis method is more commonly focused on determining changing trends and methodological approaches regarding discipline and journal articles (Prasad, 2008;Guthrie, 2004;Joy, 2007;Richards, 2009).

Sample
The sample of the study is formed from 3079 articles in total that are written in the field of curriculum and are published in internationally recognised articles.These articles cover the years between 2005 and 2014 and take place in SSCI and ERIC indexed articles.

Data collection
The study is limited with the journals that only take place in SSCI and ERIC data bases.Only the accessible articles are taken into the scope of the current study after having a careful examination of all journals in the databases regarding the field.It is also important to state that the articles that are taken into the scope of the study are limited with years of 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014.Apparently, the studies carried out after 31 December 2014 are not included in the study.As a data collection instrument 'Curriculum Classification Form (CCF)' is used.The form is formed from 7 parts.In the first part of the form there is information about authors of the articles and article details. Number of the authors taking place within the article, academic titles of the authors, country and institution details are taken into consideration particularly in the first part of the form.Other parts of the form cover; year, method, subject distribution, teaching level, research model and data collection instruments respectively.Further, the literature review that is carried out for accessing the articles is performed using the key words of 'curriculum', 'curriculum development', 'curriculum evaluation'.80

Data analysis
Both collecting the articles and doing content analysis on these articles are carried out by a lecturer and three doctorate students of curriculum and instruction department during research process.In order not to have or at least lessen the mistakes in the analysis process, the researchers came together on regular basis and had meetings to classify articles according to their characteristics.Additionally, the data obtained from the articles are arranged according to sub aims of the study.After that, the data collected via the Curriculum Classification Form is analysed through SPSS 20.0.The classification is made according to certain dependents such as published year of studies, subject tendency, research method, research model, data collection instruments and teaching level.After classifying the dependents, a comparative examination is carried out.This comparative examination enabled researchers to make deeper comments over the findings.In the analysis of the data, frequency and percentage techniques are used.

Findings and interpretations:
The findings obtained regarding the sub aims of the study are given below.

Most frequently used research methodologies by years
The comparative results of the studies in which the most frequently research methods according to years implemented are given below in figure 1.As it could be seen in figure 1, published years and implemented research methods of the articles taken into the scope of the study are compared.From the findings obtained, it is revealed that there has been an increase, especially between the years of 2013 and 2014, in the 81 number of studies regarding curricula and instruction.However, in the articles that were carried out between the years of 2005 and 2014 the researchers mostly preferred to implement qualitative research methods.In 2014, there has been a particular tendency towards the use of qualitative techniques.It is also worth to state that although to a lesser extent, quantitative methods are also used by the researchers.Finally, it is also discovered from the findings that the researchers do not prefer to use mixed research methods in their studies regarding the field.Consequently, it is thought that since qualitative methods provide more in-depth data, they began to be more common.

Distribution of articles according to most commonly published journals
The results of the analysis indicating in which journals 3079 articles that are in SSCI and ERIC databases are most frequently published are given below in table 1.In table 1, articles in SSCI and ERIC databases and studies in those articles that carried out about curricula and instruction are given a place.As it could be easily seen in table 1, most of the articles regarding the field are in 'Journal of Curriculum Studies (n=216)', 'BMC Medical Education (n=121)', 'Croatian Journal of Education (n=98)' and 'Studies in Higher Education (n=80)' respectively.In the ERIC database, however, 65 articles are accessed on-line.Among these journals 'Australian Journal' is found to be number one in terms of holding the uttermost articles (n=21).On the other hand, least of the articles of SSCI and ERIC regarding curricula and instruction are in 'Canadian Journal of Higher Education (n=2)', 'Urban Education (n=1)', 'Science & Education (n=1)', 'Journal of Planning Education and Research (n=1)' and 'Educational Research Review (n=1)' respectively.

Subject trends of articles taken into the scope of the study
The results of the analysis obtained from the subject distribution of articles taken into the scope of the study are shown in table 2 below.

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In table 2 above, the distribution of subject tendencies of studies regarding curricula and instruction are given.32, 4% of the articles in journals of SSCI and 50, 4% of the articles in journals of ERIC have their subjects about 'curriculum design', 'curriculum development' and 'curriculum evaluation'.Along with this, 10, 8% of the articles in journals of SSCI have their subjects on 'teacher education'.Again, the results obtained revealed that articles studied in the field of curricula and instruction indicated less distribution on subjects like 'Social and Cultural', 'Educational Technology', 'Special Education' and 'Higher Education'.As a result, it could be concluded that the most popular subjects of the field of curricula and instruction are the subjects of curriculum development and evaluation with regard to a particular discipline.Furthermore, it is also underlined that there are not many studies conducted in the fields of educational psychology or special education.

Distribution of article subjects and research methodologies
The comparative results of article subjects and research methodologies of articles taken into the scope of the research are given below in table 3.As it could be seen in table 3, the most researched subjects in qualitative and quantitative studies are curriculum development, curriculum evaluation and curriculum design.16.7 % of the qualitative studies had their subjects on curriculum development, curriculum evaluation and curriculum design (n=513).On the other hand, 7.9 % of the quantitative studies had curriculum development, curriculum evaluation and curriculum design subjects as the most research subjects (n=245).It is found from the findings of the study that, researchers mostly preferred to conduct their studies about curricula and instruction qualitatively.In the second place, they 85 preferred to follow quantitative research methods whereas the mixed method was the least preferred research method by the researchers.

Distribution of articles with regard to their sample population and research methodologies
Distribution of articles with regard to their sample population and research methods are given in the following table 4. As it could be seen in table 4, most of the studies that are all directly or indirectly related to the curricula studies are qualitative in nature and mostly teachers are used as subjects (n=349, % 58.9).After teachers, students are the most studies subjects.Students of primary (n=70, %46.7), secondary (n=139, % 46) and university (n=13, % 43.3) are the most studied subjects.Again, the findings of the study showed that majority of the studies are conducted with both students and teachers as subjects equally.61.9 % (n=172) of the studies taken into the scope of the study are formed from student and teacher sample population.

Distribution of articles with regard to their research methodologies
Distribution of articles with regard to their research methodologies are given in table 5. From the findings of the study it could be stated that 52, 2 % of the journals of SSCI adopted 'case study' as a research model whereas only 3, 4 % of the journals taking place in the ERIC database used case study research model.This result indicates that case study as a research model is more popular for the studies of curricula and instruction.'Action research' is another research model that is popular after the case study.That is to say 29, 8 % of the journals of SSCI and 1,6 % of the journals of ERIC database employed action research.When the studies that are conducted with quantitative methods are taken into consideration, one could conclude that 48,7 % of the journals of SSCI and 4,4 % of the journals of ERIC database adopted 'survey model' as the most popular research model.Along with this, while literature survey model was used with 93, 2 % ratio in the journals of SSCI, in the journals of ERIC database this ratio was only 15, 2 %.

Comparative results of research methodologies and data collection instruments of articles
Comparative results of research methods and data collection instruments of articles that are taken into the scope of the study are given below in table 6.From the findings it is revealed that in studies where qualitative research methods were adopted, interview forms were the most frequently used data collection instruments (n=336, % 23.5).In studies where quantitative research methods were used, however, questionnaires were mainly preferred data collection instruments (n=543, %61.2).Besides, the findings obtained from the study indicated that document reviewing (n=517, % 98.5) was also used to a high degree.

Discussion and conclusion
In this current study, the articles of SSCI and ERIC databases were taken into consideration.In total 3079 articles were analysed through content analysis technique.While articles in the field of curricula and instruction were being analysed, these articles were published in 99 international journals of SSCI and 26 international journals of ERIC.The articles that were included in this current study were restricted with the ones that were only conducted between years 2005 and 2014.Additionally, the articles that were taken into the scope of the study were analysed comparatively with regard to their published year, research subject, research method, sample population, research model and data collection instrument.
According to the findings of the study, curriculum design, curriculum development and curriculum evaluation as subjects were the most popular subjects in the articles that were taken into consideration.Likewise, similar findings were also reached in the studies carried out by Ozan and Kose (2014) in year 2014.Besides, Gomleksiz and Bozpolat (2013) had quite alike findings from their studies conducted in the field of curricula and instruction.Again, Selcuk and Palanci (2014) conducted their studies and had findings that support the findings of the current study.Along with this, when the articles that were taken into the scope of the study were examined with regard to their methodologies, it was found that qualitative research methods were mainly in use.Besides, it was revealed that research of curricula and instruction was mainly concentrated in 2014.However, in the literature, the studies that employed content analysis techniques were mainly quantitative in nature that is quite opposite of what the findings of this current study revealed (Selcuk et. al., 2014;Gomleksiz & Bozpolat, 2012;Balci & Apaydin, 2009;Karadag, 2009;Arik & Turkmen, 2009;Chen & Hrischheim, 2004)

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finding obtained, it is thought that the studies conducted in that respect in the literature are mainly restricted with analysing the thesis.When the sample population of the studies were examined, it was found that majority of the studies were conducted with teachers.Researchers particularly preferred to study with teachers especially in their studies where qualitative research methods were used.In quantitative studies, conversely, university students were mainly used by the researchers.In similar quantitative studies, it was also discovered that researchers preferred to use students as sample population (Alper & Gulbahar, 2009;Goktas et. al., 2012a;Kucuk et. al., 2013;Ozan & Kose, 2014).The main reason why students were preferred to be used particularly in quantitative studies was that the number of students is more than the number of teachers.
Again, it was found out that in qualitative studies, case study and action research as research method and model were the most frequently used ones.In quantitative studies, however, it was revealed that survey, descriptive and experimental models were more popular.Along with this, it was also noticed that literature reviewing was frequently used in studies.Ozan and Kose (2014) and Fazliogullari and Kurul (2012)'s research with regard to content analysis showed that most of the articles were in survey model.This, in fact, supports research findings.Another finding of the research indicated that questionnaire, interview form and documents were the most frequently used data collection instruments.In content analysis studies that were conducted before, it was also found that questionnaire and documents were the most preferred data collection instruments (Bozkaya et. al., 2012;Goktas et. al., 2012;Simsek et. al., 2012;Sert et. al., 2012;Ozan & Kose, 2014;Saracalioglu & Dursun, 2010;Kucuk, 2013).The main purpose why questionnaires are intensely used as data collection instruments is that it is easier to reach more participants in a shorter time.
To sum up, this current study is more far-reaching in many respects than the content analysis studies carried out previously in the field of curricula and instruction.Additionally, this study reflects the new trends for the researchers with regard to the field by examining studies of the field from different perspectives that published between years of 2005-2014.Therefore, it is thought that this current study is going to shed light for the researchers of curricula and instruction.Finally, it is also recommended that researchers could conduct more studies in that respect for contributing to the field.91 Tsai, C. C., & Lydia Wen, M. (2005)

Figure 1 :
Figure 1: Most frequently studied research methodologies by years

Table 1 .
Journals in which articles published most commonly

Table 2 .
Subject trends in the curriculum studies

Table 3 .
Cross tabulation of article subjects and research methodologies

Table 4 .
Cross tabulation of sample population and research methodologies

Table 5 .
Methodologies and method trends in the educational curriculum studies