1 NEEDS ASSESMENT FOR TURKISH HIGH SCHOOL PHYSICS CURRICULUM DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT Ulaş Üstün, Ali Eryılmaz and Türkkan Gülyurdu ABSTRACT The main purpose of this paper is to summarize the results of three independent needs assessment studies for Turkish High School Physics Curriculum design and development. The first study was conducted by the Education Research and Development Department. The sample of this study includes 342 teachers, 7541 students, and 1500 parents from two counties in each of the seven geographical regions of Turkey. The results of the study indicate not only major needs of students but also ideas and suggestions from teachers, parents, different parts of the Ministry of National Education and private schools. In the second study, the Evaluation of Board of Education Reports about high school physics curriculum, open ended reports prepared by the committees constructed in 78 counties in Turkey and governmental and civil organizations were analyzed. The results provide a detailed account of the participants’ perceptions about which topics should be added and which ones should be discarded, which topics should be replaced with others and in which topics the content should be reduced etc... The final needs assessment study, needs assessment for high school physics curriculum, consists of two main parts. The first part aims to gather information about program structure, focus and outcomes while the second part includes potential contexts and topics. A questionnaire was posted on the website of 2007 physics curriculum to obtain data from respondents from a wide range of educational level and occupation. The sample of this study includes students from different levels (high school, undergraduate and graduate), teachers, research assistants, academics and participants from other occupations. According to the results of the first part, a majority of the participants indicates that the high school physics program should be developed in an interdisciplinary approach; cooperative learning should be encouraged in the program, the program should develop students’ higher order thinking skills and innovation. KEYWORDS Physics education, physics curriculum, needs assessment. INTRODUCTION Kaufmann (1988, 1992) defines need as the discrepancy between current and desired results or consequences. In other words, need refers to the gap between a present (what is) and a desired (what should be) state. Witkin and Altschuld (1995) state that needs assessment is ‘a systematic set of procedures undertaken for the purpose of setting priorities and making decisions about program or organizational improvement and allocation of resources’. Grier (2005) states that needs assessment is a valuable tool that can provide curriculum developers with the essential information on which curricular decisions are based. The results of three independent needs assessment studies for Turkish high school physics curriculum design and development are summarized in this paper. The purpose of these needs assessment studies is to gather data, input and suggestions to guide curriculum developers in the development of the new physics program for Grades 9-12 in Turkey. The participants of these studies include students from different levels (high school, undergraduate and graduate), teachers, research assistants, academics and people from other occupations. Questionnaires