Basic Science Process Skills Included in Scientific Activities in First Four Classes Science Textbooks of the Complementary Stage in Oman

Abstract

This study aimed to determine basic science process skills included in scientific activities in science textbooks for classes, first; second; third and fourth of the lower basic stage in Oman. The researchers has operationally define each process, and designed a special checklist to analyze such activities according to the set science curriculum broad lines. The analyzing unit was the paragraph as each activity was split up into paragraphs. The finding of the study showed that: Unexpectedly, scientific activities were distributed unequally throughout these textbooks; the activities in the first class are (45), decreases to (38) in the second class, then slightly increases up to (41) in the third class and (42) in the fourth class. Quota devoted to each process vibrates occasionally. Observation has the most percentage in the first class (32%), communication is the most frequent process in the second (44%) and the fourth (42%) classes, whereas Induction process has the most in the fourth class (63%). Despite mentioned in the science curriculum broad lines, such few processes have been neglected from any of these textbooks, for instance measurement in the first class; communication in the fourth class and inferring in the second, third and fourth classes. Eventually, the study recommends to implicit the processes of using numbers and using relations in the textbooks. It recommends also to include more science processes in the second class textbook to qualify it with the other classes textbooks.