CONTENT ANALYSIS OF TEXTBOOKS
4.2.3 TRENDS ACROSS TEXTBOOK TYPES
Research Question 3: What are the development trends of the diagrammatic usage in the textbooks?
In addition to the results presented earlier in the chapter that the three textbook types vary in their diagrammatic compositions, this section reports on the developmental trends of diagrammatic usage within each textbook type. As time goes on, students may experience increasing difficulty in learning the content knowledge embedded within the visual representations. This section depicts the conceivable consistencies of the diagram inclusion by the different types of textbooks.
The total number of diagrams contained by lower secondary textbooks (1983) is higher than it in the supper secondary textbooks (1283). In particular, these trends show the changes of different diagram types from lower secondary grade textbooks to upper secondary level textbooks. It thus can be expected that there are some uniformities among their frequency of usage when textbook authors allocate different types of diagrams:
(1) There is a gradual decline in use of iconic diagrams in the lower secondary general science textbooks, while both schematic and charts & graphs increase slightly. (See Figure 4.3.1 Trends within the lower secondary general science textbooks). From Fundamentals of Science Book 1 to Book 4, the percentage of iconic diagram decreased from 80.19% to 58.6%. However, the proportions of both schematic diagrams and charts & graphs peak in Book 4, reaching 32.32% and 9.08%, respectively. It makes an important distinction of diagrammatic usage between the general science textbooks used for lower secondary classes. The higher the student’s grade, the less likely the student to be exposed to iconic diagrams in these textbooks.
(2) The trends displayed within the upper secondary human biology textbooks are shown in Figure 4.3.2. That is, the amount of the diagram types remained unchanged. The percentage of iconic usage increased from 56.5% to 60.1%; the percentage of schematic diagrams dropped from 37.77% to 34.77%; and there is slight decrease in the use of charts & graphs, from 5.73% to 5.13%. The results of this investigation show that three types of diagrams possess approximately similar percentage of usage in illustration of secondary human biological concepts.
(3) The more senior the student, the more likely the student has access to learning biological concepts with schematic diagrams and charts & graphs as shown. In Figure 4.3.2 where indicates the analysis of upper secondary biology textbooks. There is a slight decrease in the use of iconic diagrams, from the percentage of
62.21% in the Human Biology Book 1 to 55.42% in Human Biology Book 2.
Meanwhile, the book Biology: An Australian perspective has the highest percentages of schematic and charts & graphs usage (35.04% and 9.54%).
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% Iconic Schematic Charts & graphs
(4) The patterns for diagrams used in student workbooks are consistent with those in the textbooks, even though workbooks are used mainly for the purpose of students’ self-evaluation and served as complementary learning materials to the textbooks. The percentage of iconic diagram drops from 83.48% to 63.72%; Schematic diagrams increased steadily from 10.59% to 27.94%; and there is minor increase of charts & graphs from 5.93% to 8.34%. Details are provided in Figure 4.3.3.
Overall, these trends in the prevalence of the three diagrammatic types in high school science textbooks reflect variations in their perceptions of the likely advantages of different diagrammatic types in teaching various scientific contents. It is evident that textbook authors tend to use more iconic diagrams in the junior secondary year textbooks; however, senior secondary year textbooks appear to include schematic
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% Human Biology Book 1 Human Biology Book 2 Iconic Schematic Charts & Graphs 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Student Resouce and
Activity Manual 1 Student Resouce andActivity Manual 2
Iconic Schematic Charts & graphs Figure 4.3.2 Developmental trends within the upper secondary
biology textbooks
Figure 4.3.3 Developmental trends within the student workbooks
diagrams and charts & graphs more frequently as the scientific content goes much in- depth as shown in Figure 4.3.4.
Iconic Schematic Charts &
graphs
Elementary biology textbooks Advanced biology textbooks
Student workbooks
4.3 SUMMARY
An examination of the nine general science and biology textbooks used by Western Australian senior high school students enabled a response to the first research objective on the use of diagrams, the distribution of diagrams across the textbooks for teaching lower secondary general science and upper secondary biology. The results of the content analysis indicated that a large amount of diagrams are included in the secondary science and biology textbooks used in the classes observed in this research. The diagrams serve as an important teaching technique implemented by textbook authors to present biological content knowledge to the students.
The distribution of diagrams in these textbooks also provided a glimpse of the perspectives of teachers on the use of different diagrams. Each of the nine science textbooks included diagrams which served as a holistic manner in the teaching such as assessment and explanation of content knowledge. In addition, the importance of the classroom teacher in an investigation of diagram use in biology appears paramount. The next section seeks to address that need by observing several teachers teaching with diagrams in the naturalistic setting of the classroom and by analyzing their use of diagrams.