Is This Knot Blind? Analysis of the Curricula of Knowledge and Information Science from a Cognitive and Knowledge Perspective

The curriculum and the quality of its contents are directly related to the skills and abilities of graduates. The purpose of this study is to analyze the curriculum of knowledge and information science discipline at different educational levels from a cognitive and knowledge perspective. In this research, the status of these lessons was studied based on Bloom's revised taxonomy and on two aspects of the status of the dimensions of knowledge (factual, conceptual, procedural and metacognitive) and the status of cognitive skills (remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate and create).

This study is an applied research with a qualitative approach, using content analysis method (qualitative and quantitative). The research population was the latest edition of the curriculum for knowledge and information science, which was studied in three B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. educational degrees. The study tool was a check list based on the Bloom revised taxonomy released by Anderson & Krathwohl (2001). MAXQDA 2018 was used for data analysis and the reliability test by using codifier agreement was 95.5%.

Findings showed that cognitive skills in B.A. and M.A. curricula paid more attention to lower level skills, but the suitability and priority of skills of each level were not considered. In Ph.D. curricula, the emphasis on the skills of both levels was the same. From the perspective of knowledge, the frequency of procedural knowledge at the B.A degree and, the frequency of concept knowledge at the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees were more than other types of knowledge-related dimensions. It was also found that there were differences in cognitive and knowledge aspects in M.A. and Ph.D. degrees.

The results of this study showed that based on Bloom's revised taxonomy, the behavioral goals of the curriculum of knowledge and information science in three studied degrees distance from the desirable situation and reviewing these curricula is essential.