Arab Educational Information Network

The present study aimed at analyzing the content of the science books for the first, second and third years in the preparatory stage cycle in Egypt in the light of the life skills. The study analyzed all the topics existed in the assigned books for these three years in the annual year 2014-2015. The process of analysis was limited to the student's book with no reference to the teacher's manual guide or making any other generalizations or suggestions for teachers. The study adopted the analytic descriptive research design in analyzing the student's book only without making any other suggestions and generalizations for teachers. The researcher designed a content analysis checklist in the light of the life skills which included twenty five subskills classified under four main domains; the thinking skills domain (scientific, critical, and creative), the psychomotor domain, the social skills domain, and the environmental skills domain. The results of the study revealed that all these domains were covered in science series at the preparatory stage cycle but with different percentages. The results showed that the science book in the second year preparatory stage covered the life skills with a ratio 41.90% as it came at the first rank. In the second rank came the first year with a ratio 30.01% and in the third rank came the third year preparatory stage with a ratio 28.10%. The results of the content analysis revealed that all the science books covered the thinking skills domain with 70.09 % as it came at the first rank then the social skills domain reached 11.21% then the skills under the psychomotor domain were covered with 9.12% thus making the environmental skills domain to be at fourth rank . In the light of these results, the study recommended the necessity for more concentration of the social, psychomotor and environmental domains in the content of the three years in the preparatory stage cycle because of their importance in the life of the learners as well as the necessity to functionalize these skills in the different educational situations. (Published Abstract)