A study of electricity sixth grade textbooks from Canada and Pakistanstudent responses and content analysis

Resumen

The current study explores the explanatory understanding indicators on the topic of ¿electricity¿ in the Grade 6, textbooks of Canada and Pakistan. It examines the occurrence of certain text characteristic features such as types of key-words, sentences and paragraphs (cf. Bublitz et al. 1999; Fraenkel et al. 1993; Newton et al. 2002). This interdisciplinary study combines key-word use, sentence analysis and paragraph analysis to analyze indicators for explanatory understanding. In a previous research study some background is discussed for this analysis in the work of Newton et al. (2002). They counted the frequency of certain clauses in a number of textbooks. One rationale they offered is that there is a lack of concern for explanatory understanding structures found in a textbook. They also emphasized that there is no simple relationship between the two processes (frequency occurrence of clauses versus explanatory understanding). The data is collected through the document analysis and empirical study in Canada and Pakistan. Two groups of students in each study were also given the same textbook to study. The experimental group was given some additional resources to compare the contrast of learning and how explanatory understanding can be improved. The study also explores if the related textbooks provided opportunities for understanding using explanatory sentences. A grade six-level textbook can explain this concept to show more reasoning behind everyday observations (cf. Keil and Wilson 2000) of the concept of electricity. The presentation of direct results include statistical data from the textbook language structure, lexeme occurrence, sentence analysis, paragraph analysis, student-made pictures, student writing analysis of lexemes, and the multiple choice tests. The indirect results of this study are discussed in relation to the multiple dimensions of various studies conducted on similar topics. Based on those results and discussions, recommendations are made for applying some of the outcomes of this study in textbook designing, curriculum designing, and the general teaching process. The underlying process of learning has many common foundations (cf. Roscoe and Mrazek 2005; Glynn et al. 1991; DeBoer 1991), therefore science learning from textbooks is perhaps comprehensively analyzed when multiple factors are compared within the parameters of a study, and analysis is extended to other similar studies and ground work is presented for future studies. Science textbooks are used in Canadian and Pakistani elementary level schools for a range of needs (cf. Mahmood 2011; DiGiuseppe 2007). The design of textbooks is a combination of interdisciplinary knowledge and skills, from various fields (cf. Venezky 1992; Purves 1993; Wellington 2001) such as, cognitive science, curriculum theory, psychology, education, science, philosophy, linguistics, technology and other similar domains (Purves 1993; Chambliss and Calfee 1998). The importance of textbooks depends on the user group: teachers rely on textbooks for lessons planning (Mikk 2000:15), students use them frequently i.e. for self-study (Roth 2005:241), and ¿the textbook industry is a multi-billion dollar enterprise¿ (Phillips 2006:iv). The constant changes in curriculum design, policy changes, research paradigm shifts, social and pedagogical aspects make it important to analyze and update textbooks from a variety of frameworks (Chambliss and Calfee 1998; Johnsen 1993; Giordano 2003). There were two textbooks analyzed for this study on the topic of electricity. One was published in Canada and the other one was published in Pakistan. The Canadian textbook analysed for this study Electricity¿Science & Technology was published by Addison Wesley, Pearson Education Canada (Campbell et al. 1999) and no detailed textbook is available that is approved by the Ontario Ministry of Education. . The textbook in Pakistan was published by Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore in 2011 (Sleemi et al. 2011). From now on in this research study the Canadian textbook will be referred as ¿CT¿ and the Pakistan¿s textbook will be referred as ¿PT¿. In fact, the educational research database ERIC shows that there is no study conducted on a science textbook for children in which micro-level and document analysis methods were combined. Thus the present study fills an urgent research gap. The current study explores the explanatory understanding in the CT and PT and it examines the occurrence of certain text characteristic features such as types of key-words, sentences and paragraphs (cf. Bublitz et al. 1999; Fraenkel et al. 1993; Newton et al. 2002). This interdisciplinary study combines key-word use, sentence analysis and paragraph analysis to analyze indicators for explanatory understanding. The basis for this analysis was given by Newton et al. (2002), they counted the frequency of certain clauses in a number of textbooks. One rationale they offered is that there is a lack of concern for explanatory understanding structures found in a textbook. They also emphasized that there is no simple relationship between the two processes (frequency occurrence of clauses versus explanatory understanding). The data collected through the document analysis and empirical study indicates that a textbook on the topic of electricity designed for grade six has missed the opportunity of being as explanatory as possible. A grade six-level textbook can explain this concept to show more reasoning behind everyday observations (cf. Keil and Wilson 2000). The general uses of electricity shown in a textbook may not be good enough for constructing explanatory understanding with reference to the flow of electrons. The contents of the textbook are also scrutinized, analyzed and discussed for possible misconceptions for the intended grade six-level students. The research design was comprised of control and experimental groups, to compare the distinction of the results in the two settings. The control group used just the regular textbook (in the respective area of Canada and Pakistan) and the experimental group used the respective textbook (Canada and Pakistan) along with some additional resources. In many places, the Ontario curriculum expectations work as guide for textbook writing. They are also critically discussed in this study to promote explanatory understanding of science concepts. This study also includes data on the science textbook of Grade 6 from Pakistan on the topic electricity published by the Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore in 2011. The data collection approach was same as it was for the Canadian textbook. The data shows the textbooks from Pakistan had less emphasis on explanatory understanding. The student responses also indicated lack of explanatory understanding. The use of some additional books with explanatory understanding shows students were able to understand better about the concept of electricity with the help explanatory text and pictures of atoms. This study shows the need for using more explanatory texts and pictures to facilitate the learning of science students at elementary level, and further studies can extend these research parameters. The main focus of the present study is not on the effects of graphic comprehension - although a classified collection of various types of student-made pictures is included. Despite the lack of standardized textbook analysis methods (cf. Wellington 2001; Purves 1993), the use of more balanced qualitative and quantitative analysis methods to compare curriculum delivered versus curriculum received can provide a variety of data (cf. Chambliss and Calfee 1998). Further research on Canadian and Pakistani textbooks is necessary in order to promote local and international level comparative studies (cf. Roth et al. 2005: vii, Mahmood 2011).