A Comparative Analysis of Inquiry- Based Tasks in Science textbooks in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon

Abstract

Studies nowadays are concerned by the reforming of science education according to the standards of science mainly the American National Science Education Standards that give an importance to inquiry experience in the classroom highlighting the 5 features of inquiry. For this reason, the aim of this study was to evaluate elementary science textbooks of two Arab countries (Lebanon and Saudi Arabia) and compare the inclusion of inquiry within the textbook teaching materials between the two countries based on 2 models of inquiry; the five features model and Herron’s scale of inquiry. The whole elementary textbooks of both countries were evaluated from cover to cover taking into consideration all exercises, experiments, tasks, questions… and the results were analyzed accordingly for every grade level and then the whole elementary level. The results and comparison of inquiry inclusion revealed that Saudi Arabian elementary textbooks encouraged inquiry-based experience more than the Lebanese textbooks with different percentages for each feature. However, in both countries this inclusion was less that 50% and requires publishers to include more inquiry- based tasks within the textbooks especially when the textbooks serve as a primary resource in learning and teaching. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabian textbooks had teaching materials that are more student-centered than the Lebanese textbooks. They had a great number of activities within the 4th level of Herron’s scale while the Lebanese textbooks had more activities within the 1st level. Further research should be conducted in more textbooks within more countries to better understand the inclusion of inquiry in textbooks and its quality between different textbooks.