A Comparative Study On Mathematics Textbooks Which Published By Chinese Mainland’s People’s Education Press And Taiwan Nan I Book Enterprise

In the21century, a lot of countries in the world began to reform curriculum. The textbook is the main product in the curriculum reform. To explore the advantages and shortcomings of current Chinese mathematics curriculum reform in the area of statistics and probability, this research choice mathematics textbooks which published by Chinese Mainland’s People’s Education Press and Taiwan Nan I Book Enterprise as the subjects. The researcher analyzes and compares the content of statistics and probability from one to nine grades and discusses the similarities and differences of the two versions of the textbooks.The research uses the method of comparative analysis and content analysis. The researcher develops the content analysis categories of statistics and probability based on the meanings of statistics and probability, the existing research results, curriculum standard of Chinese Mainland, curriculum outline of Taiwan, the principles and standards published by NCTM and the "statistics and probability" content in the TIMSS. Then, selecting the problems as the units, the researcher analyzes the "statistics and probability" content of these two versions of mathematics textbooks based on the content analysis categories. It is analyzed from the dimensions of teaching objectives, content proportion, concept distribution, concept presentation.The main results are as follows:1. Similarities and differences of the teaching objectivesThe teaching objectives in two versions of textbooks are accordant with course standard and curriculum outline. But the number and the distribution of the teaching objectives in the all categories is quite different.2. Similarities and differences of the content proportionFrom the analysis of "questions", we find content proportion of statistics and probability in two set of textbooks is small. But it is quite different in different grade.3. Similarities and differences of the concept distributionThrough the comparison, we found the two versions of textbooks arrange statistics and probability separately, and take the statistics as the priority. But the textbooks of Chinese Mainland pay more attention to the connections between the probability and statistics. For the statistics, although both the two versions of textbooks emphasis on "describe data", their concerns are quite different. For the probability, there is a big difference of concept distribution between the two versions of textbooks.4. Similarities and differences of concept presentationSelecting "the sampling" as a typical case, compare the content and layout. Further find that Chinese Mainland pay more attention to the integrity of the statistical concept, emphasize on thinking of statistics. Taiwan focuses on the details. Compared with Chinese Mainland, The number of the questions of Taiwan is much less and worse topic layers, less multiple points of questions and open-ended questions.