Examination of the representation of science and engineering practices in middle school science textbooks

With the reforms of science education programs, the main purpose of science education in our country, as in many countries, has been determined as educating students as science-literate individuals (Ministry of National Education (MoNE), 2018). Scientific literacy is defined as the ability to have skills such as questioning, problem-solving, critical thinking, and creative thinking, which are also called 21st-century skills, and to use them in overcoming the problems encountered in daily life. In order to cope with the problems encountered in daily life, it is considered important to deal with the events from a different and multidimensional perspective and to transfer the knowledge gained at school to be used in the solution of that problem. Raising individuals equipped with these skills is possible with a quality curriculum and the education and training process carried out together (Küçükahmet, 1995; Varış, 1996). As a result of the initiatives in this direction, the skill areas in the 2017 science curriculum were gathered under three main headings. These are science process skills, life skills, and engineering design skills. These skills were named 'field-specific skills in the science curriculum' with the program revision in 2018. The importance of engineering and design skills has increased in this curriculum. The increasing importance of engineering and design skills in the curriculum is also a reflection of the inclusion of engineering education in the science curriculum in the USA (Sungur Gül and Marulcu, 2014). It is important to include the achievements related to science and engineering practices in the curriculum, but it is not enough on its own. Teachers mostly follow the content in the textbooks in their classroom practices and include the practices in the textbooks in their lessons. In other words, the content of the achievements in the curriculum is embodied through textbooks. In this direction, it can be said that in order to carry science and engineering practices to the classroom environment, these practices should be included in the science textbooks at a sufficient level. Studies examining science textbooks in terms of science and engineering practices are quite limited. In order to contribute to this gap in the literature, this study aims to examine secondary school science textbooks in terms of the representation of science and engineering practices. For this purpose, in this study, secondary school science textbooks used in Turkey (5th-8th grades) were examined. In the research, document analysis method, one of the qualitative research methods, was used. The data were analyzed by content analysis. The tool used in data analysis in this study is the "Science and Engineering Practices Analytic Rubric" (SEPAR), which is used to evaluate the activities in the school textbooks within the scope of science and engineering practices. This table is a rubric that covers eight dimensions and four levels. Analysis units selected from the textbooks were scored according to the dimensions and levels of science and engineering practices in SEPAR. As a result of the research, it was found that science and engineering practices were not adequately represented in science textbooks; It has been revealed that the activities that include the dimensions of science and engineering practices are mostly at the 1st level in these dimensions. As a result, at the 5th and 6th grade levels, the books of MoNE publications are in better condition than the books of private publications; it has been determined that at the 7th grade level, the book of private publication and the book of MoNE publication are in a similar situation in terms of their representation levels of science and engineering applications. Based on the research findings, it has been suggested that the activities in the books should be improved in terms of their level of representing the dimensions of science and engineering practices.