Şırnak Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi

Öz

Universities in Turkey admit students through central examinations. Under the scope of the Higher Education Institutions Examination (HEIE), there are two examinations, excluding the language examinations. These are the Basic Proficiency Test (BPT) and the Field Proficiency Test (FPT). In these examinations, there are questions from the courses such as mathematics, Turkish, geography, history and physics. Since 2013, questions from the Religious Culture and Ethical Knowledge (RCEK) have also been asked in these examinations. There are five questions from the RCEK in the BPT, and six questions in the FPT. A total of 11 questions are asked in the university entrance examinations each year. The inclusion of the RCEK questions in the university exams has caused various debates. The RCEK, which has been compulsory since 1982, has been taught two hours a week from the fourth grade to the 12th grade. The purpose, content and compulsory nature of the RCEK course have been and continue to be debated both nationally and internationally. Such debates help the RCEK curriculum to develop further and to produce answers to emerging needs. In this study, it is aimed to contribute to the discussions about the RCEK by analyzing various aspects of the RCEK questions asked in the university examinations. The basic assumption of this research is that as it is possible to deduce from curricula, textbooks, teacher training policies about the philosophy and approach of a course, that is also possible from the questions in the university examinations. That is because the questions in the university examinations come from the subjects and attainment targets in the curriculum prepared by the Ministry of National Education. In this context, the problem sentence of the research is “What is the relationship between the RCEK questions in the university examinations and the secondary RCEK curriculum?”. The research was designed according to the case study, which is one of the qualitative research methods. The reflection of the secondary RCEK curriculum on the HEIE questions was identified as a case, and analyzes were made within this framework. The questions included in the scope of the research consist of the 44 RCEK questions between 2019 and 2022. The following steps were followed in the data analysis process. Firstly, the questions were read several times by the researchers and the distributions of class, unit, objective and the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy were made without each other's knowledge. Afterwards, the researchers came together, and these distributions were compared and finalized. Afterwards, the characteristics of the questions were digitized and transferred into the SPSS program and frequency and percentage analyses were performed. According to the findings obtained from the study, the questions in the BPT are distributed disproportionately according to the grades. However, the questions in the FPT are normally distributed according to the grades. There are questions from all units apart from two units in the secondary RCEK curriculum. When HEIE questions are examined according to the aims of the curriculum, there are questions about all of them except one. It can be said that HEIE questions cover the aims and content of the RCEK curriculum. In the classifications made according to the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy, almost all of the questions were matched with “conceptual” and “factual” knowledge dimensions. In addition, approximately 95% of the questions were asked at the “remember” and “understand” dimensions. These dimensions are the most primary ones and aim to remember the problem from long-term memory and make sense of it. While international examinations such as the PISA and the TIMSS value high-level cognitive skills, that national examinations in Turkey such as the HEIE prioritize rote knowledge is not acceptable in terms of the goals of education. There is a need for further studies on the effect of the RCEK questions in the HEIE on the content and educational situations of the course.