Literacy can be understood as the ability to read and write, or – in a more modern sense – to competently use and produce media products. Frequently, literacy is used in a binary understanding of either literate or illiterate, which would locate the development of literacy in primary schools only. In contrast to that one could accept literacy as the center piece of formal education, and as an ability that can be increasingly improved and further developed across different stages of the formal education system (Pfeffer et al., 2021). From the perspective of competencies, the sequential structure of the formal education system (e.g. primary, secondary and tertiary education) can be described as a way of continuous development of literacy, not just as a mere accumulation of knowledge. Literacy, in general, requires procedural knowledge - the ability to do something - as opposed to declarative knowledge - knowing of something (Venezky, 1990). Thus, in the case of research literacy it is about the skills and practice of how to conduct research and produce academic research. At the higher education level, we see emergence of research literacy in the academic context, dealing with academic and professional texts in the subject area. It is clear that digitization changes text and production types as well as the way we communicate academic information, and new requirements for research literacy emerge, recently accelerated with the Covid-19 Pandemic. These changes do not deal with digital literacy but with the changes in research literacy emerged due to digitalization. Thus, a more comprehensive and holistic conceptualization is required to understand the skills required by the current academic context. In this study, we adopt the conceptualization of research literacy developed by Pfeffer et al. (2021) comprising five skill areas:

1. Searching skills: ability to search, assess and select academic or vocational documents

2. Reading skills: ability to read, comprehend and extract information from academic or vocational documents

3. Writing skills: ability to express information, arguments and results in different formats, genres, levels of complexity

4. Distributive skills: ability to present, share and publish information in different contexts

5. Collaborative skills: ability to collaborate and to co-create text and publications

Moreover, research literacy is an under-researched area not only in Turkey but world-wide. Our search in Scopus and Google Scholar (with key words “research literacy” and “academic literacy”) yielded only a handful of studies on the academic literacy mainly with a focus on academic writing (See Altınmakas, D. & Bayyurt, 2019 and Yigitoglu Aptoula, 2021).  A systematic review conducted by Keser Aschenberger and Pfeffer (2021) revealed no study using “research literacy” as a concept.

Rooted in this context, the specific goal of the study is to understand and describe how graduate students in Turkey perceive the concept of research literacy and their own competencies and skills in research literacy using this novel and comprehensive framework. This new framework will fill a gap in research literacy discourse which most of the time discusses academic writing and reading skills. Our research question that guides the study is: How do the graduate students in Turkish higher education institutions perceive their level of academic literacy level and how does this perception differ according to student and university characteristics?

We follow a quantitative design, namely cross-sectional survey (Cresswell, 2014). An online survey developed by Pfeffer et al. (2021) was adapted to Turkish. This survey aims to identify the perceived competency in academic literacy. The instrument measures five sub-skills of research literacy which were identified as: searching skills; reading skills; writing skills; distributing skills; and collaborating skills. All sub-scales used 6-point Likert-type scales ranging from 0 (no competency at all) to 5 (very high competency). It also examines students’ familiarity and usage of academic for the Turkish version, two researchers translated the survey to Turkish and then a consensus was reached. Then the draft was reviewed by two experts concerning the translation and the validity of the items. After the final corrections, pilot study was conducted with 40 students in a state university in Turkey. We made small adjustments based on the pilot and now we are at the stage of data collection where we are sharing our online survey on LimeSurvey with the state and private universities in Turkey. Our target population is graduate students in Turkey who are registered to Master or PhD programmes in state or private universities at the moment of data collection. In our sampling strategy, we pay attention to include universities from different geographical regions, different sizes and forms (state vs. private). We aim to reach at least 500 students. Data will be analysed using SPSS.27 to provide a descriptive analysis as well as comparison of means according to student and university characteristics.

Our findings will reveal the weaknesses and strengths of graduate students in research literacy in Turkey. Among five sub-skills of research literacy, we expect that writing skills would be rated as the lowest both in content related and formal aspects of writing. Among these skills, the least predictable one is the ability to collaborate, because it represents a new understanding that has been newly addressed under research literacy. So, our findings will shed a light on the areas of skills that needs to be addressed to while designing research courses and considering learning outcomes of the study programmes during curriculum development. Moreover, we predict that there will be differences regarding student characteristics, especially according to study year and study programme as well as geographical location of the universities.

Altınmakas, D. & Bayyurt, Y. (2019). An exploratory study on factors influencing undergraduate students’ academic writing practices in Turkey. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 37, 88-103, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2018.11.006. Creswell, J. W. (2014). Research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method approaches. SAGE Keser Aschenberger, F., & Pfeffer, T. (2021). Working on the concept of research literacy in academic continuing education: A systematic review. European Journal of University Lifelong Learning, 5(1), 43-58. https://doi.org/10.53807/0501ical. Pfeffer, T., Keser-Aschenberger, F., Hynek, N., & Zenk, L. (2021). Research literacy in continuing education (ReaLiCE). Monograph Series Continuing Education and Lifelong Learning, Krems. https://doi.org/10.48341/163s-ye73 Venezky, R.L. (1990). Definitions of literacy. In Venezky, R. L., Wagner, D. A., & Ciliberti, B.S. (Eds.), Toward defining literacy (pp.2-16). International Reading Association. Yigitoglu Aptoula, N. (2021). Exploring academic literacy practices of graduate students in English language teacher education programmes at English-medium universities in Turkey. Literacy, doi:10.1111/lit.12279.