Science Process Skills in the Greek Primary School Science Textbooks

Abstract

Science process skills play an essential role in science education. The research assessing these skills in school science textbooks is limited. The aim of the current study was to examine the involvement of science process skills in the content of science school textbooks of the last two primary school grades in Greece. A specific analysis framework was adopted, based on 534 activities included in the two textbooks. It was concluded that the activities included in the two textbooks mainly involved the skills of communicating, observing, and inferring, while the involvement of the remaining science process skills was particularly limited. Therefore, the school textbooks fail to provide students satisfactory opportunities to engage in science process skills and facilitate a better understanding of sciences ideas and concepts. The findings of this study provide information about some strengths and weaknesses of the science textbooks that could be used by teachers in planning for teaching.

Keywords

• science process skills
• school textbooks
• science education