A Comparative Study On Scientific Methods Demonstration In Chinese And American High School Biology Textbooks

Scientific method is an important content of scientific literacy,which contains great intellectual value.Mastering scientific method plays a positive role in supporting students' sustainable development.As the carrier of teaching and learning,textbook's content of scientific method has a direct impact on the implementation of scientific method education.Therefore,the author takes the biology textbooks of senior high schools in China and the United States as the research object,selects the textbooks widely used in the two countries,and further selects the representative and comparable contents,namely,the two countries' textbooks "molecule and cell","Heredity and evolution",and studies the scientific method presentation of these two parts.The research mainly analyzes the presentation and representation of scientific methods in textbooks.The presentation mode is analyzed from the aspects of frequency,location,task and activity form of scientific method presentation.The classification system of task and activity form is based on the literature analysis,which analyzes how textbooks train students to master scientific methods.Representation mode is a set of detailed analysis standards of representation mode of scientific methods developed by Ian C.Binns,an American scholar,in order to explore what viewpoint the scientific methods appear in textbooks,and whether the representation mode is implicit or explicit.It is found that the content of scientific method education in textbooks of the two countries is rich,and the frequency of textbook presentation in China and the United States is basically the same for model method,hypothesis and other methods.For investigation,simulation,intuition and inspiration,systematic methods,both Chinese and.American textbooks show very low frequency.In addition,for induction,deduction and comparison,Chinese and American textbooks have obviously different performances.For the presentation location,both Chinese and American textbooks focus on the skill column to organize the use of scientific methods.The presentation location of scientific methods in Chinese textbooks is more diverse and distinctive,and the degree of visualization of scientific methods is also higher.As for the activities of training scientific methods,Chinese and American textbooks have different emphases on different methods,and the activities set up by Chinese textbooks presenting scientific methods are more hierarchical than those of American textbooks.From the results of representation level of scientific methods,both Chinese and American textbooks have the characteristics of mixed representation of scientific methods.The degree of expression of traditional scientific methods in Chinese textbooks is significantly higher than that in American textbooks,and the frequency of presentation of generalized scientific methods in American textbooks is higher than that in Chinese Textbooks.On the basis of the above analysis results,the author summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of each,and provides some suggestions for the arrangement of scientific methods in textbooks and the implementation of scientific method education by teachers in China and further reflects on the research needs to be improved.