An Analysis and a Comparison on the Concepts and Illustrations of Life Science in the Elementary School Science Textbooks Used in Taiwan and Singapore

• Main Authors: Yang Zong-rong, 楊宗榮
• Other Authors: Huang Hon-bo
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/54802900018680851083

碩士 === 國立臺中教育大學 === 科學應用與推廣學系科學教育碩士班 === 98 === The main purpose of this study is to analyze and compare the composition of contents, the concept of life science, and the style of illustrations in the unit of life science that are used in the elementary school science textbooks in Taiwan and Singapore. Through the analysis and the comparison, we hope that we may contribute some references to the compilation of life science unit in science textbooks. Our approach to conduct this research is based on content-analysis method. The elementary school science textbooks are selected from the third grade to the sixth grade. As for the objects of study, the edition for Taiwan is Kang Xuan and the edition for Singapore is Marshall Cavendish (“MC” for short). The tools of the research include "The concept of life science analysis table" and "Illustrations type analysis table". Respectively, we use "page" and "picture" as the units of analysis to calculate the number of times and the percentage. After the synthesis of quantitative data and qualitative analysis, we have the following findings. 1.The composition of unit in elementary school science textbook in Singapore is more complete and the blocks of content are more rich and diverse. 2.Both in Taiwan and Singapore, most of the pages in elementary school science textbook are concerned with the concept "observe and understand the biological characteristics," Mainly, Taiwan’s textbooks focus on "operational capability" and Singapore’s textbooks focus on "systematic knowledge". 3.Taiwan's textbooks adopt the "spiral deeper" approach and distribute the concept of life sciences to the various grades. The concept is built deeper and wider every year. Singapore’s textbooks adopt the "theme of integration" approach and proceed with the complete concept teaching in a short term. 4.Both in Taiwan and Singapore, the textbooks use a lot "as the reproduction of a map" to proceed with the concept of teaching in life science. For all grades, it has the highest utility rate. 5.The types of illustrations in the textbooks in two countries are not affected by grade. But their change depends on the contents of teaching materials. 6.The textbooks in two countries use "composite map" to show the concept of abstraction. Singapore's illustrations have more complex types and embrace more intellectual contents.