SCIENTIFIC PROCESS SKILLS IN MOROCCAN SIXTH-GRADE SCIENCE TEXTBOOKS: A CONTENT ANALYSIS

Abstract

Textbooks are crucial in influencing how science is taught and how it is learned. In Morocco, recent reforms encourage inquiry-based and competency-based learning methods, but it is not clear to what extent these methods have been embraced in textbooks. This study investigates how the scientific process skills (SPS) are represented in three sixth-grade science textbooks in Morocco. A descriptive content analysis with 187 learning activities was done. The findings reveal that there is an uneven presence of SPS, where observation is the most prominent skill (36.4%) while key inquiry skills like measurement (1.1%), communication (0.6%), hypothesis formulation (5.1%), and control of variables (5.1%) are limited. In total, basic skills account for 58.8% of occurrences while integrated skills made only 41.2%. Moreover, inquiry-based methods are distributed unevenly across scientific subjects: physics has more inquiry-based activities compared to life sciences and environmental sciences. This means that the textbooks investigated do not do much to develop higher-order scientific reasoning skills.

Keywords: science textbooks, scientific process skills, inquiry-based learning, primary science education

Ethics and Conflict of Interest

All ethical rules were observed at each stage of the research. The authors declare that he acted in accordance with ethical rules in all processes of the research. The authors declare that they do not have any conflict of interest with other persons, institutions or organizations.

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Yalçınkaya-Önder, E., Zorluoğlu, S. L., Timur, B., Timur, S., Güvenç, E., Özergun, I., & Özdemir, M. (2022). Investigation of Science Textbooks in terms of Science Process Skills. International Journal of Contemporary Educational Research, 9(2), 432-449.  https://doi.org/10.33200/ijcer.1031338