Comparison On Permutations And Combinations Based On Different Editions Senior School Mathematic Textbooks Printed By People Education Press

Permutations and combinations, as an important teaching content of high school-mathematics, is widely applied in the areas of natural science, social science and social life. And since it is abstract and logical which involves many mathematical thinking ways such as classification, the reduction and the modeling, it is of great educational value to the education of students’comprehensive development. However, the teaching quality in permutations and combinations has been low since the curriculum reform was carried out, as its complication and it has been changed and adjusted constantly. Therefore, the study plays an important role in the compilation of textbooks, teachers’teaching and students’learning by answering these questions:What are the differences, advantages and disadvantages among new textbooks and traditional textbooks in permutations and combinations? How to adjust and improve the teaching of permutations and combinations?As a consequence, five editions of textbooks which are published in1957,1964,1980,1993and2005are chosen as study material in this study. Literature reading, comparative method and statistical analysis method are used as study methods to comprehensively compare the five dimensions:the teaching objectives, the course content, the curriculum difficulty, the structure of compilation, examples and exercises basing on the Teaching Syllabus and the Curriculum Standard, so as to provide meaningful guidance to the compilation and teaching of permutations and combinations.Based on the comparison of permutations and combinations in five textbooks, we come to the following conclusions:(1) From the view of teaching objectives of the Syllabus and Curriculum Standard about the permutations and combinations, the language description is more and more abundant. The classification has not reflected the objective of "emotion, attitude and values"; the amount of these objectives grows constantly and their average levels are improved. What is more, the2003edition has quite clear and detailed regulations on achievement.(2) Concerning the curriculum content of permutations and combinations, an increasing tendency can be seen in the amount and selection of material. And from the curriculum capacity of permutations and combinations, we get that the overall permutations and combinations has not changed much and only some differences exist in several knowledge points. However, there are more additions than deletions in the content of permutations and combinations.(3) Considering the curriculum difficulty of permutations and combinations, the most difficult edition is the1980edition and the2005edition in the second place. These two editions have only0.69gaps in difficulty. It shows that the current content of permutations and combinations is difficult.(4) Regarding to the Compiling System of permutations and combinations, the textbooks in early years have little illustrations and single forms. Comparing with them, the2005edition not only has varied colors but also has varied illustrations which meet the spirit of the times. What is more, the frame structure of permutations and combinations gradually becomes complete, clear and logical.(5) As for examples and exercises of permutations and combinations, an increased tendency exists not only in the number of example and exercise but also in the variety of exercises in all these editions. In the difficulty of exercises, it has an increased proportion in the aspects of "background","explore","operation" and "reasoning". In the "Knowledge content" factors of permutations and combinations, the difficulty degree has not changed much and it has been in a relatively stable state.Based on the results of the study, some suggestions are made to improve the permutations and combinations which mainly focus on its teaching objectives, course content and its settings, the compilation of teaching materials and teachers’teaching.