A Content Analysis Of History Of Science In The Senior High School Biology Textbook

In the reform of international science education, science education values history of science andnature of science. In the reform of biology curriculum, it became a highlight that integrated the history ofscience into the biology curriculum. The standard of biology curriculum points out: the history of lifescience can make students understand the nature of science, grasp the method of scientific research, andstudy the spirit of science. The research is important that how biology textbooks integrate the history ofscience. It could be used as references for teachers to teaching and for textbooks editors to edit books.On the basic of abundant literatures, the research formed the framework of analyzing the historyof science in the textbooks——the type of material, the type of learning activity, nature of science in thecontent of science history. Combined with some homeland and foreign researches of textbooks analysis, theresearch formed its own method and tools. It researched the High School Biology Textbooks edited by RenJiao with content analysis method. The result is that: firstly, materials of history science are mainly used todescribe the production and development progress of scientific knowledge and science-technology-society.Secondly, the textbooks set up a variety of learning activity such as guide reading, historic data analysis，which is used in normal or deeper learning. Thirdly, in the main aspects, history of science in the textbookspays more attention to “science process” than “science knowledge” and “science culture”. In the aspect ofscience knowledge, the most frequently present category is “revolutionary”, while the least ones are“unity”、“variability” and “predictive”. In the aspect of science process, the most frequently presentcategories are “substantiality”、“empirical” and “creativity”, while the least ones are “intuition” and“model”. In the aspect of science culture, the most frequently present categories are “science andtechnology”、“limitation”, while the least ones are “social culture”and “scientific decision”. Lastly, thedifferent types of materials and learning activities influence the expression of nature of science. The besttype is “describe the process of science knowledge development” in the text content with “guide reading”.To realize the value of history of science, teachers should be good at use the different types of materials andlearning activities.