A Qualitative Content Analysis to Investigate 21st Century Skills in Learning Outcomes of High School Biology Course Curriculum

Abstract

21st century skills combine accessing information and employing it in solving problems faced in daily life, employing advanced thinking skills, working with others in harmony, effectively using technology, and being aware of global and local economic and social events. Parallel to recent educational trends in the world and in accordance with the 21st century skills, curricula in many countries have gone through substantial changes. There is an obvious need to determine how compatible learning outcomes of course curricula are with the 21st century skills. The objective of this study is to analyze learning outcomes of high school biology course curriculum within the framework of 21st century skills. The data were collected through document analysis and analyzed by the content analysis methods. In the study, each learning outcome and explanations in the biology course curriculum was analyzed in terms of their compatibility within the framework of the basic 21st century skills and related sub-skills. Results have shown that learning outcomes of the biology course curriculum are in accordance with the 21st century skills, but the distribution of the 21st century skills show different distribution (learning and innovation skills, 59%; media and technology skills, 23%; life and career skills, 18%), within the curriculum. There is no study in the literature that covers all grade levels and 21st century skills for the biology courses at the high school. This work intends to fill this gap.

Received: 2 December 2023 / Accepted: 16 February 2024 / Published: 5 March 2024