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This research bases a classification on the Four Categories of
Scientific Literacy set down by Garcia(1985) and makes lots of
reference to a guide book, "Procedures for Conducting Content
Analysis of Science Textbooks", edited by Chiappetta, Fillman,
and Settna(1991).
In order to examine the analyst reliability, there is a content
analysis for pilot study in advance, and as a result, the
reliability coefficient is so high that it supports the
possibility that the researcher can do the content analysis of
biology textbooks by himself.
The current biology textbooks for high school in Mainland China
are taken as the target of the research, "paragraph" as the unit
of analysis.It takes a census way; that is, carry out content
analysis and comprehensive statistics from one textbook to
another. The major purposes are : First, to investigate the
amount and the rate of each textbook in the four categories of
scientific literacy---Ⅰ.Science as a body of knowledge,
Ⅱ.Science as a way of investigation, Ⅲ.Science as a way of
thinking, Ⅳ.Interaction among science, technology and society
(STS); Second, to make a comparison in the content distribution
between the textbooks of the same type in the Mainland China and
in the U.S.A.; Third, to Pre-evaluate the total amount and the
relative rate in scientific literacy of each possible textbook
combination which students may choose while taking biology
courses from junior to senior high school, after the Mainland
China abandoned the policy of the uniformity in textbooks
The result of analysizing 12 sets of textbooks shows that all of
the textbooks'''' relative rates in the four categories of
scientific literacy are Ⅰ＞Ⅱ＞Ⅲ＞Ⅳ; besides, all the rates in
category Ⅰ are the highest rate over 0.5 and in the category Ⅳ
are the poor standard less than 0.1. That explains that in
content edition this kind of textbooks far more emphasize
" Science as a body of knowledge" than the scientific literacy
related with STS. Though the result is similar to the report of
the same-type analysis on textbooks for American high school by
some scholars, the report shows a quite low rate in category
Ⅲ. It is worth considering whether the textbooks for American
high school neglect "Science as a way of thinking."
If the textbooks, the target of this research, can be chosen at
will and can not be repeated, then after the Mainland China
opened it policy of the textbook uniformity, there will be 12
different ways of combination. In content distribution of
scientific literacy, there are large differences among the total
amount and rate in each combination. Teachers can choose a best
one by the practical need; in addition, this research provides an
important reference for the biology teachers on both sides for
editing textbooks.
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