In the early 19th century, technology and engineering education attracted educators from around the world. For example, the National Academy of Engineering carried out a project called “Engineering in K-12 Education,” that was concerned with the connection between curricular materials related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education (STEM) subjects (Pieper and Mentzer, 2013). Since then, engineering education has been integrated with k-12 science curricula in a number of countries (Purzer et al., 2015; Purzer and Quintana-Cifuentes, 2019). For example, the National Science Education Standards (NSES), [National Research Council (NRC), 1996; National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council (NAE and NRC), 2009, p. 4; NGSS, Lead States, 2013; Brand, 2020], adopted engineering design processes and recommended that it be included in science curricula. This integration of engineering design processes in K-12 science education led to reforms in pedagogical, epistemological, and methodological courses and programs for teacher preparation (Benz, 2019; Purzer and Quintana-Cifuentes, 2019). In addition, the NGSS raised engineering design to the same level as scientific inquiry, which was initiated by NSES, by pledging to integrate engineering design into all levels of science education.

To enhance students’ interest in scientific and engineering process, as well as to improve the teaching of science, the NRC further developed its NSES to establish the New Generation Scientific Standard (NGSS). The NGSS were designed to guarantee science education that is grounded in real-world experience (NGSS, Lead States, 2013). Students were expected to be able to investigate and apply important scientific concepts as one of three elements of the NGSS practices. One of the goals of NGSS was also to ensure that students graduated from high school with expertise in engineering design activities and inquiry methods. One way to achieve this would include developing, science textbooks and experiments’ guidebooks with interdisciplinary knowledge, particularly engineering knowledge that would allow students to gain experience rather than memorize concepts and ideas.

The National Research Council (NRC) (2009) highlights the necessity for science training to reflect scientific investigative procedures when generating theories and models and engineering process when building solutions. Ghalia et al. (2016) argues that integrating engineering design processes in K–12 schools can improve student results. They state that incorporating engineering in science education could increase desire to study mathematics and scientific materials. Would also learn to contextualize open-ended issues (Rubel and Mccloskey, 2021). An understanding of the engineering design process could also improve’ knowledge of mathematics and scientific content, and their interest in STEM careers (Berland et al., 2014; Ghalia et al., 2016). The NGSS [National Science Foundation (NSF), 2010; NGSS, Lead States, 2013] was established to reiterate the opinion that scientific courses that “stimulate and create enthusiasm” in STEM would boost the number of students choosing STEM careers. STEM education predominantly emphasizes engineering (Ubuz, 2019). Consequently, there has been an increase in efforts to develop and implement programs like STEM for high schools and K-12 engineering outreach programs (Brand, 2020; Aysun and Ozlen, 2021). However, as Ghalia et al. (2016) point out, although these activities have been successful in introducing the engineering design process to children, instructors remain the most important influence on student outcomes. In addition, Ross et al. (2018) stress, professional development opportunities and knowledge of curriculum-integrated engineering applications are limited, leaving instructors with little assistance to modify their methods.

Educators, in recent years. Have adopted the Engineering Design Process (EDP; Hynes, 2012) as a tool for STEM implementation in a variety of STEM-related topics (Nurtanto et al., 2020). This importance of EDP can be verified by the number of research studies that have been conducted on the efficacy of EDP in STEM education. As a field of study, engineering design can be characterized in many ways. The engineering desirability steps include [National Research Council (NRC), 1996, p. 192; National Research Council (NRC), 2012]: (1) Define the problem, (2) Select a systematic solution, (3) Modeling and Analysis and (4) Repeat the design process. Students’ ability to apply science and mathematics to real-world problems can be considerably enhanced by the implementation of the phases of the EDP (National Research Council (NRC), 1996, p. 192; English and King, 2015; Hafiz and Ayop, 2019). Later in 2012, the National Research Council (NRC) (2012) further developed these phases and recommended eight EDP steps for the K-12 Framework for science education.

Because chemistry textbooks have the potential to influence how students learn as well as how chemistry and science teachers teach and achieve curriculum goals [National Research Council (NRC), 2007, 2012; Niaz and Maza, 2011; Bergqvist and Chang Rundgren, 2017; Kremen et al., 2022]. They influence not only what and how students learn in school, but also what and how science teachers teach science (Niaz and Maza, 2011). Chemistry textbooks play a vital role in schooling. The course structure, as well as the framework for learners’ experience and evaluation, are primarily reliant on textbooks for science and chemistry teachers (Devetak and Vogrinc, 2013; Aldahmash et al., 2016; Nurtanto et al., 2020). Our study is guided by the NGSS and its suggested eight EDP steps [NGSS, Lead States, 2013; National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), 2014, 2018]:

We also added another process (redesign) to our analysis rubric, based on the suggestions made by Hirsch et al. (2017). We are convinced that redesign is an important process for students’ mastery of science and chemistry and redesigning activities are essential components of any scientific processes.

Chemistry textbooks and experiment guidebooks for tenth-grade students were examined using a mixed-method approach that included quantitative data analysis and qualitative content analysis. The units of the analysis were the activities or experiments provided in these books. There were 30 activities and experiments in both the chemistry textbooks and experiments’ guidebook for the tenth-grade students (19 in the textbook and 11 in the guidebook). A methodical approach to examine the targeted textbooks involves examining the activities included in the textbooks Babbie (2001) and White and Marsh (2006) was employed as a guideline in this study. In addition, we looked at the paragraphs, worked examples, figures, and tables to determine whether there were any connections between the practical and theoretical aspects of the document. The processes developed by Babbie (2001) and Krippendorf (2004) were employed to convert raw textual material into standardized codes. This allowed categorization of data for text-driven analyses, problem-driven analyses, and method-driven analyses (Nguyen et al., 2020). This was further explained in Part II, titled “Components of Content Analysis,” where the author detailed the many techniques employed in content analyses, starting with their procedural logic and going organically from unitizing to sampling to recording and coding. Thus, in this paper the coding was accomplished by assigning meaning to science concepts in the document and interpreting them in accordance to the analysis cards or rubric. Qualitative data were collected for situations in which EDP abilities were not clearly mentioned in the text or activity but were implied by the phrases used. The coding approach was also used for qualitative data to search for implicit terms and then group them together based on their meaning.

Two books were analyzed; the first one is the students’ textbook, while the second one was the experiments guide. The activities and experiments, as well as the text and graphs that accompany them, were examined to determine the extent to which EDP was incorporated into the tenth-grade chemistry textbook and experiment guidebook used in Saudi Arabian schools. These books were chosen because they are taught in a grade that functions as a transition year. These books were also chosen because the student in the tenth grade take chemistry for the first time after completing middle school.

The tenth-grade chemistry textbook is 212 pages in length and is divided into five sections and includes 19 activities. The student textbook is divided into the following sections: safety signs, laboratory first aid, a general introduction, how to use the book effectively, general objectives, and a content list. Each chapter of the textbook contains a content list, a launch experiment, and the lessons. Each lesson contains objectives, concepts, new vocabulary, and assessment questions. Numerous lessons incorporate a variety of activities, such as experiments, data analysis laboratories, chemistry laboratories, and problem solving laboratories. Each chapter is concluded with a validated questionnaire.

On the other hand, the tenth-grade chemistry experiment guidebook or experiment guide is 46 pages in length and contains 11 activities named as experiments. It includes an introduction, general objectives, content list, lab safety, instrument, and five chapters. Each chapter contains an experiment, with the exception of chapter two, which contains a three-in-one experiment. Each experiment contains the following components: a conceptual introduction, a problem, objectives, list of tools and instruments required, safety precautions, prior to the experiment, working steps, hypothesis, cleaning and discarding residuals, a table for data and observation, analysis and deduction, error analysis, and real-world chemistry.

The NGSS (NGSS, Lead States, 2013), the National Research Council (NRC) (1996, 2000, 2012), and constructivist theories (Rintaningrum, 2008) all suggest that textbooks and experiments’ guidebooks should be linked, with experiments conducted first and the related content in the textbook discussed and organized based on the results of each activity. According to NGSS students should be treated as scientists when it comes to the design of activities in the students’ science textbook or experiments’ guidebook.

The results presented in Table 3 indicated that the first practice, “Identify the problem,” was the most included EDP. It was directly included in the experiments’ guidebook and indirectly in the activities of the textbook. The practice “Generating Alternative solutions” was the least included, all indirectly, with 23.3% of inclusion. The total of the EDP inclusion was found to be 62.58% at the first level, which indicates that 37.42 of the activities did not include EDP. Furthermore, all EDP skills were not properly included in the textbook and the experiment guidebook.

Regarding the level of inclusion, Table 3 indicates that the inclusion of all EDP skills varied between 1.53 and 0.40, where the practice Framing Design recorded the highest level (f = 28, M = 1.53) among all other EDP and practice Generating Alternative solution recorded the lowest level of inclusion (M = 0.04). It should be noted that all EDP were not included directly or literally in the textbooks. Instead, the inclusion was deduced from the meaning of the sentences or the words. For example, the practice Identify the problem was not found in the student’s textbook.

However, all activities included this practice as researchable questions. As an example, in the activity (Experiment: Development of Observation Skills) in the chemistry textbook, Chapter 1, Lesson 3, page 23, the EDP practice Identify the problem, was found as a question (Why are observational skills important in chemistry? Observations are often used to reach conclusions. The conclusion is an interpretation or clarification of the observation). This was the case in all the activities in the tenth-grade student’s chemistry book. In another example, we used the meaning of the practice Modeling or Prototype, provided in the NGSS, to locate this practice in the chemistry textbook. This practice was not found in most of the activities in the targeted chemistry textbook, directly or indirectly.

In some activities, we deduced the inclusion of the practice Modeling only from the meaning. For example, in Chapter 4, Lesson 3, the activity (Experiment, observe a reaction that forms precipitate) in page 135, the practice Create a prototype that can be tested was included. It worked relatively well. It was written as: Write a symbolic chemical equation balanced for the reaction between NaOH and MgSO4. Note that most of the sulfate compounds are present as ions in aqueous solutions. The text asks students to: (1) write a balanced equation, which requires mathematical modeling. (2) Write the complete ionic equation for this reaction, and (3) Determine which ions are spectating, then write the final ionic equation for the reaction. The general mean of the inclusion of EDP in the activities of the tenth-grade chemistry book was 1.0481. This value indicates that the inclusion was at level one, which indicates that the inclusion did not meet a majority of the criteria. The level one of inclusion is categorized as novice or deficient.

According to Table 4, the total mean of the students’ textbook was 1.0058, while the mean for the inclusion in the guidebook was 1.12. This may show that the inclusion of the EDP in the guide book is higher than in the student’s book. However, the inclusion value for both the textbook and guidebook were at level one.

In the experiments’ guidebook, the inclusion of some EDP was found to be direct, i.e., the word “problem” was found at the beginning of each experiment. However, the problems were stated as questions and not as statements as recommended by the NGSS. For example, in Experiment 4.1 “single-replacement reaction,” in page 33, the problem was stated in the form of two questions; “The problem What elements replace others in simple substitution reactions? How can the results of these reactions be used to form a chain of chemical activity?“. In another example, for the practice “Redesign,” in “Experiment 5.2: Mole ratios” page 43, the book asks students “what you can do to improve the precision of the measurement of the mole ratio.” In some cases, the book asked students to redesign the experiment or to design another experiment to achieve the same result.

The result revealed that the inclusion of all nine EDP abilities in the tenth-grade chemistry textbook and experiment guidebook was categorized as level one. The inclusion of the EDP abilities in the experiments’ guidebook was higher than that in the students’ book. Nonetheless, both books can be categorized as novice or deficient in the inclusion of EDP, which indicates that they did not meet a majority of the NGSS criteria. This result was expected since the chemistry textbook and experiment guidebook used in this study were translated McGraw-Hill series, which were prepared using the scientific inquiry approach, as suggested by NRC standards [National Research Council (NRC), 1996, 2000, 2012], rather than the EDP suggested by the NGSS (NGSS, Lead States, 2013). The EDP is supposed to prepare students to cope with real life experiences after their graduation from general education (Aldahmash and Alamri, 2020; Aldahmash and Omar, 2021). The NGSS recommends using the textbooks to engage students in some form of scientific and engineering design process, such as those included in the analysis rubric. It should be noted that inquiry skills are also not well-represented in the current science (Aldahmash et al., 2016). Analysis approaches for different science curricula have been made and revealed similar results (Ferreira and Morais, 2014; Elmas et al., 2020; Bakken and Andersson-Bakken, 2021; Ferreira and Saraiva, 2021; Vojíř and Rusek, 2022), mathematics (Aldahmash and Alamri, 2020) or chemistry textbooks (Aldahmash and Omar, 2021). Moreover, the inclusion of all inquiry skills was directed toward teacher-centered learning rather than student-centered learning, contrary to the NRC standards [National Research Council (NRC), 1996, 2000, 2012].

Similarly, the results for the second sub-question (what types of activities could be most effective in promoting EDP among tenth-grade student?) asked in this study, revealed that none of the activities were effective in promoting EDP among the tenth-grade students. This was because all activities and experiments exhibited EDP at level one and all activities were novice in the inclusion of EDP skills. This implies that all activities in both the textbook and the experiments’ guidebook should be redesigned to provide students with opportunities to participate in real and authentic science activities. EDP enriched activities would allow students to learn science meaningfully and then acquire all the required skills. To further understand the connection between the activities and the texts the contents of the textbooks were also analyzed. The results indicated that there were some connections between the experiments in the experiments’ guidebook and the text in the student textbook. Unfortunately, there was no indication that the experiments were explorative or EDP enablers. This means that the experiments just serve as factors for confirming the concepts. This situation has to change for students to function as scientists and engineers who are able to cope with real life requirements after graduation. This necessity can be fulfilled by assuring that experiments and other activities used in science textbooks serve as EDP agents. This will also help students build their authentic science knowledge and their EDP abilities (Nurtanto et al., 2020).

The result for the third sub-question (do the EDP skill levels determined in current tenth-grade chemistry textbooks and experiment guidebooks align with the NGSS’s recommendations for engineering design), indicated that the inclusion of all eight EDP skills or abilities were not consistent with the NGSS that recommend constructing all activities to improve engineering designs abilities in students. The textbook and guidebook used in this study lacked EDP practices that could help students build skills required to be scientists or engineers (Syukri et al., 2018; Margot and Kettler, 2019; Nurtanto et al., 2020).

The result also revealed that only the Identify the problem ability or talent was directly included in the experiment guide, but not in the students’ textbook, despite the fact that this inclusion only pertains to the skill’s title and not the specification. The textbook for the students and the guidebook for the experiments did not expressly mention any of the other abilities. This indicates that the activities in chemistry textbooks and guidebooks must be modified to meet the NGSS performance expectations [National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), 2016, 2018]. The activities should also be cognitively tied to the text or topics presented in the textbook, so that the entire book content can help students develop EDP skills. Therefore, redesigning the curriculum according to the K-12 science education standards provided by the NGSS is a necessary step to employ these engaging pedagogies. The EDP can be used by science educators to incorporate new projects and technologies into the classroom.

The findings revealed that the EDP skills were included at level one in a tenth-grade chemistry textbook. Level one of inclusion has been labeled as novice or deficient, indicating that the chemistry curriculum fails to meet the NGSS standards and indicators (NGSS, Lead States, 2013). Several barriers prevent effective implementation of EDP in science education. Furthermore, the EDP is a new learning strategy, and many science educators are uninformed about its full potential. These issues, suggest a need for further review studies that explore the nature of the EDP integration in science education. The findings of these investigations can provide useful information that can be applied to improve learning and teaching materials used in STEM education. The EDP’s strength is in the multiple benefits it provides to scientific education stakeholders, but the knowledge required to successfully implement it is still inadequate.

The overall results of the analysis confirmed that the inclusion of the EDP skills in chemistry textbooks does not fulfill current national and international science education standards, including NGSS. Thus, the study may lead to a better understanding of the complete and progressive character of the science curricula. It may pave the way for the improvement of the current science and chemistry curricula. Science instructors can use the EDP practices identified here to introduce new projects and technologies in their classroom. The study’s findings imply that all activities in chemistry textbooks and the accompanying guidebook should be rewritten to encourage authentic science activities that address real-world concerns. Incorporating EDP abilities in chemistry textbooks and guides would also benefit students in a variety of ways. To begin, it may aid students in achieving greater test results in chemistry and other science disciplines (Wendell et al., 2017). Another study suggested that EDP would increase students’ interest in science while also improving their scientific reasoning abilities (Silk et al., 2009). The legitimacy of this process for curriculum creation stems from its long history of use in the EDP. For now, a curriculum that acknowledges the conceptual framework of EDP and is designed to the standards established by the NGSS is required to understand the best practices that can be employed to create engaging pedagogies in science education. Science instructors can use the EDP to introduce new projects and technologies into the classroom. The well-known design method related to such framework is also taught to engineering students as industrial design. As a result, additional study is required to determine the effects of incorporating the EDP into high school chemistry curricula to develop engineering design thinking and conceptual knowledge in high school students. Another future study that focuses on merging the EDP into STEM-based learning in order to strengthen the engineering design skills of chemistry and science instructors could be extremely beneficial.

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

AA developed the theoretical formalism, performed the content analytic procedure, statistical analysis, and the numerical simulations, contributed to the final version of the manuscript, and supervised the project. YA proposed the idea, contributed to the development of the theoretical formalism and the final version of the manuscript, and supervised the project. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

This research was supported by the KSU Deanship for Scientific Research (Group #RG-1441-482).

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.