Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
1 Associate Professor, Allameh Tabataba’i University; e-mail: maleki-@yahoo.com
2 Professor, Allameh Tabataba’i University
3 Faculty Member, Shahid Raja’i Teacher Training University
4 . PhD Candidate, Curriculum Development, Allameh Tabataba’i University
Abstract
The present research aimed to probe into the degree of correspondence among intended, implemented, and attained curricula of social studies in the first year of Tehran high Schools. It was an analytical–descriptive research, and the studied population of the research comprised the members of social studies curriculum planning council, school administrators, teachers, heads of educational groups, and students in the first year at high schools in the city of Tehran. The sample size was consisted of 20 school administrators, 200 school students, 19 heads of educational groups of social studies, 60 students as the representatives of student groups and 52 teachers in Tehran high schools. The sampling method used for teachers, administrators, students, and representatives of students was a randomly clustering multi-stage sampling. To collect the required data, in addition to the analysis of all related documents, views of the members of the social studies curriculum planning council, school administrators, teachers, the heads of educational groups, and students were sought. Moreover, 20 social studies classrooms across the city of Tehran were observed and the students therein were tested based on administering knowledge, attitude and skill tests, and finally the mean of end-course (summative assessment) and through the course (formative assessment) scores was computed.
Despite the fact that social studies curriculum planning was appraised as well-planned, and that the results from the present research shed a clear light on social studies curriculum planning at three mentioned stages, they would probably be an indicative of many factors developers might have to deal with such as inadequate teacher training, insufficient facilities to facilitate learning, the difficulty level of contents, and so on at implementation stage. Besides, results of students’ scores during a schooling year and results from three tests including knowledge, skill, and attitude tests revealed that students’ performance in knowledge test was good and in skill test satisfactory, but their performance in attitude test was found to be weak.
Given that lots of weaknesses were observed in implemented curriculum planning accompanied by not achieving skill and attitudinal goals, it is essential that the social studies curriculum planning council, school administrators, and teachers make further attempts to lessen discrepancies in three curricula, namely the intended, the implemented, and the attained related to social studies in first high school year through applying appropriate methods.
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