Science process skills are claimed

Science process skills are claimed to enable an individual to improve their own life visions and give a scientific view/ literacy as a standard of their understanding about the nature of science. The main purpose of this study was to develop a test for measuring a valid, reliable and practical test for Science Process Skills (SPS) in secondary education at basic and integrated levels. The test was developed according to the renewed 9th and 10th and 11th grades chemistry curriculum acquisitions of “content”, “chemistry-technology-society-environment”, “communication”, “attitude” “value” Participants of this study are 222 students from a vocational high school and the Anatolian school of Izmir, Turkey. The test consisted of 30 multiple-choice questions and the KR20 reliability coefficient of this test was calculated as 0, 83. The test consisted of sub-dimensions as , observing, classifying, measuring, communicating, inferring, predicting, formulating hypotheses, identifying variables, designing investigations, acquiring data, organizing data, and interpreting it. The test is compatible with a model which consists of observing, measuring, acquiring data, formulating problems, designing investigations, organizing data, interpreting factors of literature. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis supported validity and reliability of the test.

One of the most important purposes of science is to improve the understanding of the students about
the nature of science. The nature of science is identified as scientific data, scientific behaviours and
the gathering of information (Koseoğlu, Tumay, & Budak, 2008). The most important dimension of
the nature of science is the ways to achieve (gather) information and the phases of the scientific method (Millar, 1991; Toplis, 2012; Unal-Coban, 2009). The ways of gathering scientific data and the phases of scientific method are technical processes. The researchers, who want to experience this process, must have some skills such as science process skills (Gültekin, 2009; Kanlı, 2007; National Research Council [NRC], 1996). Science process skills (SPS) consist of observation, classification, measurement, setting correlations of numbers and space, predicting, organizing data, formulating models, interpreting, identifying of variables, formulating hypotheses and finally experimenting (Ergin, Şahin-Pekmez, & Öngel-Erdal, 2005; Feyzioğlu, 2009; Gabel, 1992; Rezba, Fiel, & Funk, 1995; Smith, 1994; Kuhn & Franklin, 2006; Lancour, 2005; Talim Terbiye Kurulu Başkanlığı [TTKB], 2007; Valentino, 2000; Wilkening & Sodian, 2005). Zimmerman (2007) put forward the idea that SPS could be done by scientific understanding and conceptual change. According
to Koslowski (1996), SPS is an application of the methods and principles for reasoning about the problem situations. Colvill and Pattie (2002)
postulated that the activities, which consist of basic and integrated process skills, are the key factor of
scientific/science literacy and the key dimension of scientific/science literacy. Bağcı-Kılıç (2006) and
Padilla (1990) also classified these skills as basic and integrated scientific skills due to their usage according to students’ progressional phases. Science process skills constitute the basis of scientific investigation. Scientific searching and thinking should not be confined to just scientists (Bozkurt & Olgun, 2005). These skills enable an individual to improve their own life visions and give a scientific view/literacy as a standard of their understanding about the nature of science (Bozkurt & Olgun; Williams, Papierno, Makel, & Ceci, 2004). Science process skills (Gott & Dugan, 1994) are named in literature as intellectual familiarity (A.A.A.S., 1993) and scientific searching skills (NRC, 2000).
Zimmerman (2000; 2007) classified science process skills as specific for a field, or general process
skills, and also argued that knowing the scientific terms of the issue must be achieved in order to solve
any problems about one issue. For example, Pauen (1996) declared that students need to understand
the relationship between forces, in order to explain the physical movement, by using weights and for
doing this they need to know the gravity concept. Bozkurt and Olgun (2005) also argued that science
process skills are relative to learning issues and so cannot be evaluated in isolation. Students’ motivation and interest are very important for the evaluation of these skills and, because of these, they postulated that students’ scientific skills should not be evaluated about the issues which they don’t know.

Zimmerman (2000) stated that general process skills are used for correlation between the cause/
result of reasoning ability and non-specific situations. Koslowski (1996), Kuhn, Garcia-Mila, Zohar,
and Anderson (1995) agree with Zimmerman. They remarked that multiple methods must be used
for searching the relationship between theory and evidence about the improvement of science process
skills and field knowledge is not required for this situation. Kuhn, Amsel, and O’Loughin (1988) and