SAPA (Science - A Process Approach) was developed in 1963 to teach students science process skills that are essential for understanding science information. SAPA breaks skills down into smaller steps that build upon each other from basic to more advanced skills. It emphasizes developing skills like observing, classifying, measuring in primary grades and controlling variables, formulating hypotheses in intermediate grades. Studies found students learning through SAPA outperformed those in traditional programs on achievement measures. SAPA aimed to equip students with thinking skills to solve future problems.

1. SCIENCE A PROCESS
APPROACH(SAPA)
THOSHINA THOMAS
KEYI SAHIB TRAINING COLLEGE
TALIPARAMBA

2. There are three programs
developed during the decade after
Sputnik .These are
Science A Process
Approach(SAPA), Science
Curriculum Improvement
Study(SCIS) and the
Elementary Science Study(ESS).

3. Science - A Process Approach (SAPA)
SAPA’s prime assumption is that
children need to learn how to do science
and this means acquiring the skills
essential to learning and understanding
science information.These knowledge
acquiring skills are called cognitive
skills or process skills and are similar to
the procedures used by scientists to
acquire new knowledge.

4. American Association for the
Advancement of Science’s Commission
on Science Education assumed that a
sequential program was necessary for
developing a child’s intellect.
In 1963 a team of
scientists,psychologist,elementary
teachers and curriculum specialists
developed plans and materials for trial
versions of what became SAPA.

5. SAPA is the most structured
programme.It’s structure arises from
behavioral psychology .The underlying
psychological assumptions were that any
skill can be broken down in to smaller
steps and that children need to learn
lower-level skills before they can learn
more advanced skills.Original version of
SAPA developed in to a set of skills to
be mastered through a complex,highly
structured heirarchy and step-by-step
teaching.

6. •SAPA science process skills are divided in to two
types ; Basic and Integrated skills .In the primary
grades children develop these skills including
Observing,Using space / time
relationships,Classifying,Using
numbers,Measuring etc.In the intermediate grades
children use these skills as a foundation for
developing more complex skills like controlling
variables,Interpreting data,Formulating hypothesis
etc.
•It is a unique programme that emphasises science
skills over content.
•SAPA’s intention is to equip each child with the
thinking skills that can be used to solve problems they
find in the future.

7. SAPA Programme effects
Several framers were reported that
students learning science in the SAPA
programme outperformed children who
learned from traditional science
programmes by seven statistically
significant percentile points on measures of
achievement.