Study On The Investigation Of The Curriculum Integration Of High-School Mathematics And Science

Since the era of knowledge economy, the disciplinary crossing and integration between mathematics and science has become an important driving force for the society development. Meanwhile, with the change of the education value orientation, mathematics curriculum has no longer been limitied to the logical relationship within the knowledge of mathematics itself, but begun to infiltrate and intersect with other subjects, so that the curriculum design of mathematics has become multifunctional. The curriculum integration of mathematics and science has already become a hot issue of international mathematics reform.On the basis of theoretical studies on curriculum integration and the integration between mathematics and science, three topics are focused in this article:the attitudes of high-school mathematics teachers towards the curriculum integration of mathematics and science; the advantages, disadvantages and constraints of this curriculum integration; as well as the content of courses and integration pattern suitable for the integration of high-school mathematics and science.First, on the basis of literature research, well-structured questionnaire on the attitudes of mathematics teachers toward the curriculum integration of mathematics and science was carefully designed with relatively high credibility and validity. The questionnaire was then used to collect data from high-school mathematics teachers. Combined with interview materials to comprehend the present situation and characteristics of their attitudes, the diversity of the attitudes was analyzed with regard to essential features (gender, teaching age, education background, professional title and school type).Secondly, the Delphi technique was used on mathematics education specialists and senior mathematics teachers to reveal the advantages, disadvantages and constraints of the curriculum integration between mathematics and science; interview method was also used to investigate on the content of courses and integration pattern suitable for the integration of high-school mathematics and science.Finally, on the basis of theoretical studies and surveys, valuable recommendations are proposed on curriculum standards, teaching material construction, examination assessment and teacher training for the curriculum integration of high-school mathematics and science.Main conclusions of this investigation:1. Attitudes of mathematics teachers toward the curriculum integration of mathematics and science(1) The total attitude of high-school mathematics teachers is actively supportive to the curriculum integration of mathematics and science. Compared with neutral attitudes, they turn out to be supportive in cognition, behavior and total attitude, but neutral in emotion.(2) No significant difference was found in the attitude of high-school mathematics teachers toward the curriculum integration of mathematics and science in the following individual characteristics: gender, professional title, and education background.(3) The attitude of high-school mathematics teachers toward the curriculum integration of mathematics and science was found different in school type as following:teachers in junior high schools scores higher in the emotion dimension significantly than teachers in senior high schools.(4) The attitude of high-school mathematics teachers toward the curriculum integration of mathematics and science was found different in teaching age as following:teachers with teaching age of less than 10 years or 20-30 years scores higher in the emotion dimension significantly than teachers of other ages.2. Advantages of the curriculum integration of mathematics and scienceThe curriculum integration meets the psychological need of students, the teaching need of schools, as well as social need and other needs:(1) Psychological need:the curriculum integration could enhance the intrinsic motivation and positive attitude for learning;(2) Teaching need: the curriculum integration could improve the ability of students for solving problems;(3) Social need:the curriculum integration meets the demand for scientific quality of people in modern society;(4) Other needs:the curriculum integration provides an effective circumstance for teaching.3. Disadvantages and constraints of the curriculum integration of mathematics and science(1) Mathematics specialist and teachers showed little agreement on the disadvantages of the curriculum integration of mathematics and science, but are rather approval for the constraints of the curriculum integration.(2) The disadvantages and constraints of the curriculum integration of mathematics and science can be divided into four factors:curriculum, resource, teacher and student. The investigation results are:? Curriculum factor: lack of global design, desynchrony, excess of contents and deficiency of class hours would constrain the integration;? Resourse factor: lack of reference material and resources would constrain the integration;? Teacher factor: teachers lacking necessary scientific knowledge, education and training without curriculum integration, and lack of interdisciplinary communications amoung teachers would constrain the integration;? Student factor: student is not a critical factor in the constraint of curriculum integration.4. Content of courses for the integration of high-school mathematics and science(1) Not every subject or content of mathematics is suitable for integration with science curriculum;(2) Contents for integration with mathematics are not uniformly distributed on the three subjects of physics, chemistry and biology. According to the chi-square results, physics has more suitable contents to integrate with mathematics than chemistry and biology.(3) The most suitable contents of high-school mathematics for integration with Physics are Derivative, Trigonometric Function and Vector; the most suitable contents of Maths for for integration with Chemistry are Derivative, Function and Ratio; the most suitable contents of Maths for for integration with Biology are Probability, Function and Statistics. The most suitable contents for integration with Maths in Physics, Chemistry and Biology are respectively Velocity, Organic Chemistry and Genetics.5. Teaching pattern for curriculum integration of mathematics and scienceTeaching pattern for curriculum integration of mathematics and science can be devided into three integration patterns, with organization centers of knowledge, idea and quenstion, respectively.