Examination of secondary school science tour books in terms of science history and teacher's opinions

Objective: Today, it is thought by researchers that using the history of science at all levels in science teaching will provide a more effective and permanent science learning. Based on this situation, the study was carried out in order to reveal how and how much the history of science in the secondary school science textbooks is included and to investigate the current use adequacy by taking the opinions of the teachers. Material and Methods: In the study, four books, which are taught as secondary school science textbooks throughout Aydın by the Millî Eğitim Bakanlığı in the 2020-2021 academic year, were examined and the opinions of teachers working as science teachers in state secondary schools related to textbooks were taken. Case study method was used in the research. With the document review method, the history of science contents in the textbooks were examined using a scoring key. Then, the opinions of science teachers working in public schools throughout Aydın were taken with a semi-structured interview form. From the qualitative data obtained, the contents of the history of science in the books were analyzed with 13 criteria including conceptual understanding, procedural understanding and contextual understanding. The analysis of the data obtained with the semi-structured interview form was analyzed using descriptive and content analysis. Results: It has been determined from the findings that the conceptual understanding dimension and contextual understanding dimension of the science history contents in the secondary school science textbooks are at a good level, while the procedural understanding dimension is at a moderate level. The findings obtained from the teacher interviews are that the content of history of science in science textbooks is insufficient. Conclusion: It has been concluded that the content of history of science in secondary school science textbooks is generally at a good level, but it needs to be reconsidered and rearranged according to some examination criteria in the scoring key. The opinions of the teachers received also support this.