Textbooks play a significant role in education around the world. Although several studies have reported that textbook-led teaching and learning suggests a teacher-centred content approach, textbook use is prevalent in the teaching and learning culture of Bangladesh. The redeveloped primary science textbooks of Bangladesh now promote the teaching of a student-centred inquiry-based approach. This study explored the inquiry process skills promoted by the primary science textbooks and the voice of textbook professionals (authors and publishers)—their intentions behind the pattern of promotion of the inquiry process skills. A qualitative content analysis of three primary science textbooks was accompanied by interviews with textbook professionals. Results showed that the inquiry process skills of observing, recording data, and communicating results received the highest emphasis in and across the textbooks. Textbook professionals valued students’ scientific understanding of their world through the development of their inquiry process skills, and showed adaptive expertise, to varying degrees, as they designed the three textbooks. The students’ context, cognitive development, and learning processes were found to be key considerations in the design features of the textbooks.

教科书在世界范围内的教育中发挥着重要作用。尽管有几项研究报告说，以教科书为主导的教与学建议以教师为中心的内容教学法，但在孟加拉国的教与学文化中，教科书的使用很普遍。孟加拉国重新开发的初级科学教科书现在促进了以学生为中心的基于查询的方法的教学。这项研究探索了由初级科学教科书和教科书专业人士（作者和出版商）的声音所推动的探究过程技能，他们的意图是提倡探究过程技能模式。对三种主要科学教科书进行了定性的内容分析，同时还接受了教科书专业人士的采访。结果表明，查询过程中观察，记录数据，教科书中和教科书中的交流重点都得到了高度重视。教科书专业人士通过开发他们的询问过程技能来重视学生对世界的科学理解，并在设计三本教科书时不同程度地展示了适应性专业知识。发现学生的情境，认知发展和学习过程是教科书设计功能的关键考虑因素。