In recent years, as a candidate member of European Union (EU), Turkey has been continuing to attach great importance to education and has committed itself to reforms in education and progressive alignments of the EU criteria in order to become a developed and prosperous country. It is widely accepted that providing high quality education is crucial for building future of societies. The “Knowledge Economy” needs a workforce that can apply knowledge, reason analytically, think critically and solve problems effectively. In this respect, postgraduate education involving studying for degrees or other qualifications, for which Bachelor's degree is required; has recently gained more emphasis. The main goal of graduate education is educating highly skilled citizens and professionals, able to produce, disseminate, use, and address this knowledge to the specific issue of their national context as a part of a wider globalized society (Kearney, 2008). As expected, higher education institutions have a focal position for these reform efforts (Ercetin, 2006). Particularly, both Faculties of Education and Department of Educational Sciences (EDS) have unique roles in the advancement of theory and practice. Training teacher candidates, offering Ms and PhD degree in education and preparing future faculty clearly demonstrates the missions and how these institutions serve society in general and educational stakeholders in particular. Along this way, higher education institutions in Europe have started some developmental practices to improve their qualities in terms of international vision such as exchange programs, in the respect of adaption to EU, Turkey has also taken a role in this process (e.g. Bologna Process). Therefore, it leads Turkey to reevaluate/revise its higher education programs to keep up with European context and standards. Educating and training such a highly qualified manpower primarily require a strong curriculum which is under continuous assessment and revision process. Similarly, taking students’ views and identifying their expectations as stakeholders of the program might provide better insights to improve the existing programs (Morrison, Ross, & Kemp,2004; Gredler,1996). In this respect, the purpose of this qualitative case study is to examine the needs and expectations of the graduates of the Curriculum and Instruction Master’s and Doctoral degree program (CI) by addressing the following research questions: (a) What are the needs and expectations of the Ms and PhD graduates of CI program? (b) To what extend their needs and expectations are satisfied? (c) What are the strengths, and weakness of the program from the graduates’ point of view?

This qualitative case study, designed to reach in-depth information on a small group of participants(Leedy&Ormrod,2005) and to increase “the understanding of the cases”(Patton,1990, p.14), aimed at exploring the needs and expectations of the graduates of CI program in EDS at Middle East Technical University(METU), Turkey. The medium of instruction where the study took place is English.METU is globally recognized, distinguished, research university. For data collection, individual interviews were conducted with 3 MSc and 4 PhD graduates.The participants were purposefully selected from the list including only those who completed their MSc/PhD. In this selection process, researchers carefully include graduates of different supervisors adding variety in terms of participants’ thoughts, experiences and vision.Accessibility and desire to participate the other two aspects considered in the selection.Two semi-structured interview schedules were designed, one for MSc and one for PhD group. The interview took 35-60' and transcribed data were subjected to the content analysis.

As the data is still being analyzed, the exact results could not be fully provided yet; the preliminary results could be reported. Most participants stated that they pursued their studies on voluntary basis with intrinsic motivation, and were satisfied with the positive atmosphere, quality of faculty, and professional development opportunities provided by the program. However, limited number of elective courses offered and the number of instructors were reported as item or areas to be satisfied. Some differences among the participants depending on their background characteristics were also found. Lastly, it is believed that the method followed in this study and the findings will enlighten researchers who would like to address more effectively and efficiently to their CI graduate degree programs as well as similar degree programs. Furthermore, this study might give insights to the faculty and institutions planning to open new graduate degree programs.+++ continues in References