Hitit İlahiyat Dergisi

Öz

Textbooks stand out as materials that fulfill the objectives of the subject area and curriculum goals in education and religious education. However, the fact that textbooks can provide the desired effect in education makes it necessary for them to carry some qualifications. The content is one of the three essential variables of written materials, together with readability and design. It has the power to present educational objectives and outcomes concretely and in a systematic and efficient manner, making it a distinct and crucial aspect of textbooks. Its effects on the material make the content significant in textbooks. As a basis for other fields and that it is one of the main problems related to religion for individuals or societies, faith issues hold a distinct position in the instruction of religious culture and moral knowledge and curriculum. This and other unique features of the field of faith must be taken more into account the issues related to field knowledge and field education. This includes acting from basic sources when teaching the subject, arranging the suitable content for the target audience, and correctly transferring abstract meanings to the concrete learning and teaching environment. This study selected faith-related units from secondary school textbooks on religious culture and moral knowledge as samples exemplars. The chosen units were specifically selected based on the developmental stage of the target audience, where learning about faith issues crystallizes and takes shape. The content was analyzed within this context to confirm adherence to scientific principles and curriculum standards. This study was planned as qualitative research. The study’s qualitative data was gathered using the content analysis method and the textbook content evaluation tool prepared for this purpose. The acquired data were evaluated using a suitability scale, which compared the highest total score that can be obtained from the textbook content evaluation tool items with the total score obtained and organized based on the skill rate between 0 and 10. At the end of the study, the assessments showed that all the textbooks examined in the sample of faith-based units had high overall scores for content features, with suitability levels rated as 'quite adequate'. However, the positive outcomes did not persist in the assessments relating to the items. It was concluded that the competence outlined in the curriculum had not been attained whilst meeting the objectives, accomplishments, and criteria for creating instructional materials. Regarding the main problem of the study, this issue revealed that the alignment between the curriculum and the textbooks could not be achieved at the desired level in secondary school religious culture and moral knowledge textbooks, specifically in the sample of faith units. The same situation has been experienced in complying with scientific principles. Although the desired characteristics are generally present, ensuring logical consistency in sentences, paragraphs, titles and units within texts has emerged as a recurring challenge in all of the textbooks. Sufficient verses and hadith translations related to the subjects were incorporated. In the same manner, it was noted that students were not sufficiently encouraged to engage in critical thinking and research. The study has found that in order to maintain the positive developments noted in textbooks in recent years and to enable them to achieve the desired qualities as a material at the utmost level, collaborative research by subject specialists and educationalists is essential for supporting content creation and editing efforts. Comparisons of the relevant units within textbooks between classes and between books have revealed the importance of addressing abstract and controversial topics like belief in angels and the afterlife, and the belief in destiny, through interdisciplinary studies in a more concrete manner. The finding that the assessed content of the textbook unit is mostly proficient and possesses the desired attributes, despite some problematic areas, leads to the conclusion that teachers who convey this content in the learning-teaching process and advice on the use of textbooks as materials should be evaluated with regard to their subject-specific competencies. Teachers and their competencies have suggested that it is a necessary to discuss the pre-service training programs that are designed to train the relevant personnel are trained in religious education thus higher religious educational institutions. Then, the focus should be on in-service educational studies that provide teachers with the effective strategies of learning by understanding the process of program development processes and textbooks that are part of it.