Comparative Research On The Representation Of The Nature Of Science In High School Biology Textbooks From China And The United States

Improving students’ general scientific literacy has been the primary task for education over the world. Also, it is currently a central element of the high school science education reform in China. Current research reveals that the majority of students and teachers have naive views of the nature of science (Abd-El-khalick & Akerson,2004; Bianchini & Colburn,2000). This problem could be attributed not only to the complex nature of science, but also to the problem the nature of science is presented in textbooks. Therefore, comparative research on the representation of the nature of science based on high school biology textbooks from China and the United States has theoretical and practical significance. The main purpose of this study is to compare representation differences of the nature of science in the high school biology textbooks from China and the United States.Content analysis and comparison are the primary methods used in this research. According to pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) theory, curriculum standards textbooks, students and teachers are all indispensable component of PCK of the nature of science. So in order to compare the representation among different textbooks properly, curriculum standards will be compared first, then views on the nature of science of teachers and students and their attitudes toward teaching science of teachers will be investigated.Chiappetta’s framework of general view of the nature of science and the Alshamrani’s framework of special view of the nature of science are used in analyzing the representation of the nature of science in the curriculum standards. Views on science and education questionnaire (VOSE) composed by Chen(2006) are used in assessing views of the nature of science of high school teachers and students and attitudes toward teaching science of teachers. Distribution equilibrium of the presentation of four elements of the nature of science in high school biology textbooks are quantitatively analyzed by Chiappetta’s general view of the nature of science framework and the textbook analysis tools. Qualitative analysis are conducted on the accuracy of the nature of science representation for the textbook by Alshamrani’s special view of the nature of science framework and Abd-El-Kha’s Scoring Rubric (2008) of the nature of science.The main conclusions of this research are as follows:(1) Representation of the nature of science in two curriculum standards from the United States is more explicit, which contains more science as a body of knowledge and more detailed STS content. The two curriculum standards from China, on the other hand, contain more detailed representations of science as a way of thinking and science as a way of investigating. Generally speaking, the special view of the nature of science is insufficient and inaccurate; most of them are represented implicitly and inaccurately.(2) Views of students and teachers on the nature of science in most perspectives are implicit and inaccurate, some of them are mixed view. It is found that there are no significant differences between teachers and students by t test. Attitudes toward teaching science of teachers are implicit, informed view and mixed view, which is similar to representation of the nature of science in curriculum standards.(3) Representations of general view of the nature of science contains four elements in the textbooks are found to have an uneven distribution of the categories. They consist of a relatively high amount of science as a body of knowledge and science as a way of investigating and relatively low amount of science as a way of thinking and STS. Chi-square indicates that the quantitative distributions of representation of the nature of science in the four textbooks are inconsistent.(4) Representations of special view of the nature of science in the textbooks are not accurate enough. Though correlation analysis, it is found that Chinese curriculum standards are positively related to representation score of the nature of science in the textbooks, which means the curriculum standards affect the representation of the nature of science in the textbooks. The American curriculum standards, on the other hand, have no correlation with representation score of the nature of science in the textbooks. Yet, correlation exists among the standards themselves. Teachers and students view of the nature of science are similar with the nature of science representations in curriculum standards and textbooks.(5) With the detailed analysis of the selective and specific aspects of the nature of science in thesis, results show that the representation of the nature of science aspects about scientific method and theory and laws in textbooks is not explicit and accurate. With the analysis of the nature of science integrated with specific science contents, results show textbooks do not connect with descriptions of the function of genes to represent scientific tentative explicitly, not connect with descriptions of scientists to present the richness of the nature of science,not connect with scientific inquiry to present a variety of scientific methods and high levels of inquiry activities.