How Middle School Students’ Science Process Skills Affected by Turkey’s National Curriculum Change?

Abstract

Learning the process of scientific knowledge is a crucial skill for students. Some studies focused on this process by defining Science Process Skills (SPS) which help students to construct scientific learning and assist them in becoming active participants to learn research techniques. SPS have an important role in the Turkish Science Curriculum and this study examined the relation between the changes in Turkish national curriculum and the representation of middle school students’ scientific abilities. This is the only study reporting a comparison between the last cohort of 8th graders who were taught with the previous curriculum and the first group of students taught with the new curriculum. In addition the role of gender, the correlation between academic success and science process skills are examined.