Evaluation of primary school science curriculum, textbook and student attainments in terms of scientific process skills

Mankind's interest in nature has revealed science. In order for societies to develop and progress, they should be able to use science in every field. For this reason, individuals should be introduced to science at a very young age, and at the beginning of primary education, students should have scientific studies done in science schools and try to gain the necessary scientific skills for science. An individual who has gained scientific skills will be able to relate the problems they encounter with science subjects and use scientific methods to solve the problems. Therefore, it is aimed to evaluate the science curriculum, textbook and student acquisitions in terms of scientific process skills. The study group of the research consists of 1133 4th grade students (540 girls, 593 boys) and 31 4th grade students in Aksaray Province primary schools in the second semester of the 2017-2018 academic year. In the research, nested mixed pattern which is one of the mixed method research designs was used. The case study method was used for classroom teachers 'thoughts about scientific process skills, screening method was used to compare students' scientific process skills, document analysis was used for examining science curriculum and textbook in terms of scientific process skills. In order to examine the written documents of the research, "Primary School 4th Grade Science Teaching Program" and Primary School 4th Grade Science Course Book hazırlanan prepared by the Board of Education were used. To determine student scientific process skill levels, Scientific process skills test developed by Smith and Welliver (1994) and adapted to Turkish by Başdağ and Güneş (2006) was used. "Teacher interview form" was used to get the opinions of teachers about scientific process skills. The scientific process assessment test consists of 40 questions and measures 13 scientific process skills, and the reliability coefficient of the test is 0.81. The teacher interview form was prepared by the researcher with the opinion of the expert and its content consists of fourteen semi-structured questions. As a result of the examinations, it was determined that the science program skills and textbook activities have a low level of scientific process skills. When the results were examined in terms of students, it was found that the scientific process skills of the students were intermediate. Although more emphasis was given to gaining basic process skills in the program and textbook, the combined process skill levels of the students were found to be higher. Although more emphasis was placed on the acquisition of combined scientific process skills in the program and in the textbook, the students' level of basic scientific process skills was found to be higher. It was determined that female students were more successful in using scientific process skills than male students. When the results were examined in terms of teachers, it was concluded that the teachers' knowledge of scientific process skills was not sufficient. In order for the students to acquire scientific process skills, it is necessary to prepare the science education program and the textbook more comprehensively to the scientific process skills and to complete the deficiencies of the teachers in the scientific process skills. Keywords: Scientific process skills, Curriculum Evaluation, Science