Comparative Study On Difficulty Of Chinese And American School Mathematics Textbook

The curriculum reform of basic education is the core tache of education for all-round development. Dealing with the change of textbooks, an important issue should be considered is the difficulty of textbooks. Presently, Chinese scholars Huang Puquan, Bao Jiansheng, Shi Ningzhong have developed curriculum difficulty models separately. These models provide well theoretic base for quantitative analysis on curriculum difficulty. This study uses two models to do the quantitative analysis on middle school mathematical textbooks in China and America under the new curriculum. The two models are the "difficulty coefficient modelN=aS/T+(1-a)G/T" raised by Professor Shi Ningzhong and the "difficultyof mathematical problem model " raised by Professor Bao Jiansheng, which consists of exploring, background, operation, reasoning and knowledge. This study wants to find the actual curriculum difficulty level in China and American.This study consists of five chapters:Chapter one expounds the background and meanings of the question, and research project and methods.Chapter two arrange the former research findings on comparative study on difficulty of China and American school mathematics curricula, and find my own research project.Chapter three analyses the equation and function content in China and American mathematics textbook (use the mathematics textbooks published by People' s Education Press in China), and found that the content in American textbook is more difficult than ours, but reversed on exercises.Chapter four analyses the triangle and quadrilateral content in China and American mathematics textbook (use the mathematics textbooks published by People' s Education Press in China), and found that the content in American textbook is more difficult than ours, but reversed on exercises.Chapter five analyses the results of Chapter three and Chapter four, and give some thinking and suggestions to the reform of curriculum.