Critical Thinking Skills That are Included in the Intermediate Stage Science Books Used in Public Schools of the Kingdom of Bahrain

Abstract

This study aimed at constructing a tool for measuring the
prevalence of critical thinking skills in science books; determining
whether such skills are included and sequenced in terms of theme and
frequency in science books of the intermediate stage in the Kingdom
of Bahrain; and listing classes in terms of frequency of such skills in
the science books. To achieve these goals, a tool for content analysis
was constructed including 37 critical thinking skill items covering
three major themes. The reliability and validity of this tool were
verified, then it was applied to all science books used in the
intermediate stage, which were six student books and six workbooks.
After the analysis, it was found that only 15 critical thinking skills out
of 37 were included and distributed over the three themes at a rate of
5 per theme. The themes were arranged according to three ranks
based on the frequency of skills. The first theme came first, the second
theme came second and the third theme came third. As to the ranking
of prevalence of critical thinking skills, the three intermediate classes
ranked in the following order: the first intermediate class ranked first,
the second intermediate class ranked second and the third
intermediate class ranked third