A Comparative Study Of Chinese And American High School Physics Textbooks

In the world educational reform tide, China and the United States have carriedout a basic education curriculum reform. One of the great changes brought bychanges of reform is teaching material. At present China and the United States havetextbooks with multiple versions. The senior high school physics textbooks and theUnited States of America "Physics: Principles and problems " are two sets of maintextbooks as the object for comparative study. In the past textbook comparisonresearch, researchers compare the whole book. In order to obtain more accurate andmaneuverability result, we choose PEP elective3-5sixteenth chapter "law ofconservation of momentum" and “principle and problem in physical” and volumeninth chapter "momentum and momentum conservation" to carry out comparativestudy.Based on the investigation of the use of China and the United States high schoolphysics textbooks, we have analyzed and compared the textbook compilationprinciples between the two countries--curriculum standards, on this basis, we usedteaching material analysis method and comparative method and also used thecombination way of quantitative analysis and qualitative evaluation to compare twosets of textbooks surface structure including the two sets of textbook illustrations,columns and exercises as well as deep structure of the two sets of textbook.Through the above comparison the difference in the surface structure is mainlyreflected in the number of columns and exercises on Chinese and American materialsand the differences in the deep structure is mainly embodied in the intellectualcontent of the presentation order, way. According to the above conclusion the twosets of textbooks have their own characteristics. Chinese materials pay attention toteaching experiences, through research into the history of physics, in contents,cultivates humanistic literacy."Physics: Principles and Problems" emphasize thetextbook from life to physics, from physics to society, to see a problem with a criticaleye, to solve the problem with an open mind.In this paper, we know that philosophy of education of the two countries aredifferent through a comparative study of the two high school physics textbooks,, then we find out the similarities and differences between the two sets of textbooksand a deep understanding of the two sets of teaching materials of the characteristics.These will help the physics teachers analyze and study the textbook and improveteaching quality and efficiency.