Abstract
The purpose of the study was to determine the science process skills included in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) biology practical examinations in Kenya for a period of 10 years (2002- 2012). Ex-post facto design was adopted for the study. The content of KCSE Biology Practical Questions (KCSE-BPQ) for the period was analyzed based on 12 categories of science process skills and their descriptions. The data were analyzed descriptively using percentages. The five most common science process skills identified out of the 12 examined in the study are observation (32.24%), communicating (14.63%), inferring (13.13%), experimenting (12.21%) and interpreting data (11.94%). The results also revealed a high percentage of basic science process skills at 73.73% compared to the integrated science process skills at 26.27%. It is recommended that the Kenya National Examination Council should include more integrated science process skills into the KCSE biology practical examinations to enable the students to develop problem solving abilities and creativity which are important tools for biotechnology.
Highlights
The goal of science education is to enhance all students’ scientific literacy; that is to help students grasp essential science concepts, to understand the nature of science, to realize the relevance of science and technology in their lives and to willingly continue their science study in school or beyond school (AAAS, 1993)
The implication is that 5 out the 12 science process skills are more common within the years under study in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education biology practical examinations
Research Question 2: what are the percentages of the basic and integrated science process skills included in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education biology practical examinations?
Summary
The goal of science education is to enhance all students’ scientific literacy; that is to help students grasp essential science concepts, to understand the nature of science, to realize the relevance of science and technology in their lives and to willingly continue their science study in school or beyond school (AAAS, 1993). One of the domains critical for the development of scientific literacy is science process skills. It is natural for science process skills to be learnt since when learners interact with the world in a scientific way, they find themselves using process skills (AAAS, 1993). Understanding of the world around individuals depends on the development of concepts. The development of concepts depends on the process skills. As concepts gradually become sophisticated, process skills need to be refined and ex-
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