Although research has already affirmed the various factors compounding the complexity of curriculum delivery, a focus on the “what” of desired educational change, neglecting the “how”, and a lack of clearly thought-out implementation strategies have brought out the failures of well-intentioned, well-designed curriculum reform programs especially in the developing countries (Rogan & Grayson, 2003; Rogan & Aldous, 2005). Newly developed curriculum in the developing countries has also suffered from the lack of systematic testing and evaluation and taken-for-granted contextualization of the “imported” curricular ideas from the developed countries (Zemblyas, 2002). Besides, unique contexts of developing countries would bring along a markedly different issues and barriers associated with the enactment of new science curriculum (Abd-el-Khalick, et al., 2004; Zembylas, 2002). Moreover, research based on North American and European models of curriculum design, development and implementation may not be well suited to address the unique and situated nature of the target issues in the developing countries. 

Turkey, a developing country, is in the middle of an educational reform initiative which started with curriculum changes in the first half of the 2000s. As the Turkish society is transitioning and redrawing its socio-political boundaries and redefining its identity politics, effects of globalization – age of information, and Turkish students’ poor performance in international studies served as the main point of references during this change. A constructivist philosophy is adapted, teaching and learning processes, and teacher and student roles are defined accordingly. Following primary school curriculum, secondary school science curriculum i.e. physics, chemistry and biology curriculum, was developed based on the same philosophical conceptions and an international focus.

Secondary school science curriculum has been implemented since 2007. Ongoing discussions associated with the curricular practices point out to the barriers that were also acting for the older curriculum such as competences of teachers, lack of school facilities and their maintenance, and presence of centralized examinations for secondary and higher education. Implying a technocratic modernization of curriculum, these discussions highlight the importance of analyzing educational context, its needs, and dynamics. Then it would be possible to overcome the operating constraints, improve the educational practices and facilitate intended changes. In this regard, this study is one of the attempts to explore the constraints operating on the implementation of science curriculum from user beliefs and experiences. It is expected that the findings of the present study will contribute to policy-making and curricular practices. It is also expected that the findings will form a strong base for future studies on curriculum in Turkey, and other developing countries. 

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