A comparative study on scientific inquiry activities of Chinese science textbooks in high schools
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A comparative study on scientific inquiry activities of Chinese science textbooks in high schools Yongjun Ma 1 & Tao Wang 1 & Jingying Wang 1 Xiaomei Yan 3
2
& Amber La Rayne Chen &
# Springer Nature B.V. 2019
Abstract
In response to the 2001 National curriculum review in China, which explicitly promotes scientific inquiry in science-related subjects, many editions of new textbooks were published. Among them, this study explored the quality of scientific inquiry in the most popular science textbooks. There are nine sets of high school science textbooks published by seven major Chinese publishers in this study. Through the content analysis of these textbooks, it is found that all the textbooks included the specific sections dedicated to scientific inquiry. The quality of scientific inquiry in these textbooks was explored on specific aspects including relevance to daily life, the explicit teaching guidance, the complete inquiry process and the openness of inquiry. The findings suggest that 53% of inquiry activities included close connections to daily life. However, there were very few textbooks providing explicit teaching guidance. In particular, regarding the inquiry process of “results implications” and “making new inquiries”, 4% and 9% of inquiry activities in the textbooks came with explicit teaching guidance. Moreover, most of the activities lacked the process of scientific inquiry, especially at the stage of “questioning”. The findings are also in accordance with other literature that states that most textbooks lack high-level, open-ended inquiries. This study suggests that science textbooks should include more relevant scientific inquiries with explicit teaching guidance, opportunities for students to experience the complete inquiry process and more student autonomy in conducting inquiry. Keywords Chinese science textbook . High schools . Inquiry activities . Scientific inquiry
Introduction Scientific inquiry, as an important component of scientific literacy, has become a critical learning aim throughout the world as many nations focus on curriculum reform (Dunne et al. 2013; Hodson 2014; NRC 1996). Many countries and regions, such as the USA, * Jingying Wang [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article
Research in Science Education
England, Japan and China, have regarded scientific inquiry and development of student scientific literacy as the main objective of science education (Abd-El-Khalick 2004). Scientific inquiry is defined as a learning process in which students propose ideas based on the evidence derived from their practice and experiences in their own life, develop understanding about scientific concepts and make sense of the nature of science (Anderson 2002; Bybee 2008; Schwab 1962). It includes traditional science processes (such as questioning, predicting, observing, analysing data, inferring and interpreting) as well as scientific knowledge, scientific reasoning and critical thinking (Lederman et al. 2008). In order to implement scientifi
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