An International Comparative Study On The Difficulty Of Science Textbooks For Junior High Schools

The objectives of basic education curriculum reform put forward to change the course structure status which has too much emphasis on subject oriented, wide excess and lack of integration, to make the curriculum structure has a balanced, integrated and selectivity. Curriculum reform has been carried out more than ten years, how about the effectiveness of the curriculum reform, if the status of Chinese middle school science curriculum will change its" complex, difficult, partial, old", if the curriculum and student life are closely linked extent, whether the courses emphasis on modern society technological development, or the course content is concerned about students’ interests and experience, these curriculum issues are waiting for further studies. Teaching material is an important carrier of course content, curriculum research question settled directly to the teaching material research.Textbook difficulty is the physicochemical characterization form of the curriculum difficulty; it refers to the degree of difficulty in teaching materials. The research in difficulty of teaching materials can effectively improve the quality of teaching material, deepen teaching evaluation theory, and thus build relationships between difficult of teaching materials and students innovate ability,students development, teachers, teaching and other aspects. The project selects China, USA, UK, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, Australia, Singapore, South Korea and so on stretch over four continents, and ten representative national mainstream junior high science textbooks as objects of this research.In this study, starting from the literal difficulty, curriculum standards of each discipline in the science category were synthetically taken into account underlying the statistics content, which were comprised of four dimensions including scope of life science, material science, earth and space science, and interdisciplinary science. Based on the classification method on educational objectives applied in the study launched by Bloom and Anderson, the statistics on teaching materials was carried out from both knowledge dimension and comprehension dimension. In the knowledge dimension, values were assigned for factual knowledge, conceptual knowledge, procedural knowledge, respectively. While in the comprehension dimension, six dimensions of the cognitive process, memorization, understanding, application, analysis, evaluation and creation, were divided into three grades and assigned values, respectively, prior to calculation on difficulty based on difficulty tools of textbooks. Comparative study was completed from knowledge dimension and comprehension dimension both quantitatively and qualitatively on the overall difficulty, difficulty at different stages, difficulty of literature and practice, and interdisciplinary-knowledge difficulty.The dynamic difficulty of textbooks is related to students’ learning and tutors’teaching, both of which are affected by various complex factors in the teaching process. So that it is more objective to evaluate textbooks according to the static difficulty, when put aside these complex factors that are difficult to quantify. On the other hand, most scholars focus on textbooks from few countries, especially the textbook from the United States, and only part of the contents, during their study on difficulty evaluation. In this study, a comprehensive and systematic study on the difficulty of textbooks from ten countries in four continents from both quantitative and qualitative angles, providing important reference for the revision and preparation of science textbooks for junior high schools in China.The dissertation is divided into six chapters:The first chapter is introduction, which mainly expounds origin, introduces junior middle school science curriculum standards at home and abroad, research problem and the framework of this study. Textbook plays an important role in primary and middle schools and textbook evaluation is also a critical topic. This research provides empirical support for textbook design and compilation on the background of the new curriculum reform.In the second chapter, we discuss the definition of curriculum, textbook and textbook difficulty; analyze the factors that influence the textbook difficulty. At last part, we describe our research methods and measurement instrument. Textbook difficulty is a complicated concept; therefore we just focus on the literal difficulty. This research is based on the classification method on educational objectives applied in the study launched by Bloom and Anderson, assigning values on textbook context, devising difficulty formulas and calculating the result of textbook difficulty.The third chapter mainly introduces ten representative national mainstream junior high science textbooks and presents the result of the comparison, which includes overall difficulty, difficulty at different stages, difficulty of literature and practice, and interdisciplinary-knowledge difficulty. In this part, we also explain the research results of each textbook. Germany and Russia have a subject curriculum, the rest of other countries have an integrated curriculum.The fourth chapter focuses on quantitatively analyzing the difficulty of textbooks in the middle schools from textbook content, academic goals, concepts of knowledge, and tutorial strategies. Different textbook shows different characters on design and compilation. This research get a result of textbook qualitative analysis depends on the theoretical analysis and empirical analysis methods.Finally, we propose some suggestions and strategies for writing scientific textbooks based on qualitative and quantitative analysis in Chapter fifth.Results of the study have revealed several defects in science textbook currently used in Chinese junior high schools. It was demonstrated that the overall difficulty ranks centered, while the average level of difficulty ranks relatively low. At the same time, the amount of procedural knowledge and applicable knowledge in the textbook are relatively small, and the amount of interdisciplinary scientific knowledge is also small although its breadth and difficulty ranks centered. Besides, the assessment system in the textbook has not been well established, which embodies in the relatively small amount and few types of exercises. Another finding of this study is that the focus of international science textbooks for junior high schools has converted from scientific knowledge to the learner. Moreover, the aim of textbooks has been converted from mastery of scientific knowledge to development of students’ scientific literacy, the teaching values has been converted from the pursuit of identity to seeking diversify, and teaching method has been converted from reflection of disciplinary development to reflection of interdisciplinary progress.