Akyol, who graduated from Kırşehir Education High School in 1983 with an associate's degree, won the vertical transfer exam opened by Gazi University Gazi Faculty of Education in the same year and began studying in the Department of Educational Programs and Instruction at Gazi Faculty of Education. He completed his bachelor's degree in the Department of Educational Programs and Instruction in 1985. Akyol, who was assigned to the Şavşat district of Artvin Province, worked as a teacher in a combined classroom primary school in the village of Eski Kale, Küçük Çukur, in 1986.

Prof. Dr. Akyol won the scholarship exam organized by the Ministry of National Education under Law No. 1416 in 1986 and, on behalf of the Ministry, after completing a 6-month foreign language course at METU, he was sent to the United States in 1987 to pursue a Master's and Doctoral degree in Educational Programs and Instruction. Akyol successfully completed his Master's in "Reading Education and Instruction" and his Doctorate in "Reading Education and Curriculum," returning to Turkey at the end of 1994. In March 1995, he began working as a lecturer in the Department of Classroom Teaching at Gazi Faculty of Education. In 1996, he was appointed as an Associate Professor in the Department of Classroom Teaching at Gazi Faculty of Education. In 2000, Akyol became an Associate Professor in the field of Turkish Education, and in 2009, he was appointed as a Professor in the Department of Classroom Teaching.

Akyol served as the Head of the Department of Classroom Teaching Education at Gazi Faculty of Education from 2003 to 2012. On February 9, 2012, he was appointed as the Dean of the Faculty of Education at Düzce University by the YÖK. Akyol resigned from the position of Dean of the Faculty of Education at Düzce University on August 8, 2012, before his term ended, and on November 15, 2012, he was appointed as the Dean of the Faculty of Education at Gazi University, where he served until November 15, 2015.

Akyol currently serves as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Classroom Teacher Educators Association. He has contributed as an expert academician to the questions prepared by the Ministry of National Education's Test Development Branch, worked on the “Lifelong Learning” Special Expertise Commission during the preparation of the Eighth Five-Year Development Plan, consulted on the preparation of the “Turkish Language Course Curriculum for Grades 1-5” within the “Program Development” studies carried out by the National Education Ministry's Board of Education and Discipline in 2004, and served as a consultant for the Turkish group in the “General Competencies of the Teaching Profession” and “Special Area Competencies of the Teaching Profession” committees under the European Union Basic Education Support Program. Akyol has also served as a member of the TÜBİTAK Popular Science Books Publishing Committee and the Science and Society Projects Support Program.

Prof. Akyol, who has long held the positions of department chair, head of department, and has worked in many projects, committees, and commissions, has given numerous seminars and conferences nationwide. Prof. Dr. Akyol has books and numerous articles in national and international journals on topics such as "Reading and writing instruction and curriculum, reading expertise, visual literacy, texts, classification of texts, text questions and analysis, intertextual reading, vocabulary development, reading-writing difficulties, identification and remediation, reading comprehension, teacher education, etc."