Representations of Selected Aspects of Chemistry in Secondary School Chemistry Textbooks from Different Chinese Communities

Abstract

This thesis is composed of four studies. It focuses on representations of selected aspects of chemistry in secondary school chemistry textbooks from different Chinese Communities, namely from the Peoplea s Republic of China, Taiwan, and the Chinese minority in Malaysia. The first study looks at the representation of the intended curriculum in grade 10 chemistry textbooks, identifying similarities and differences concerning the curriculum orientation of the seven sets of textbooks (more detail in Chapter 3, Section 3.1). The first study finds different characteristics of the intended curriculum in different Chinese communities, even though the sample shares similar ethnics, language and cultural background. This outcome, in turn, inspires us to conduct another two parallel studies (Chapter 3, Section 3.2&3.3), such as redox reactions and practical work. Chapter 3, Section 3.2 introduces a study on the analysis of the visual representation of redox reactions in upper secondary chemistry textbooks from PR China, Taiwan and Malaysia. The study aims at displaying how chemistry textbooks deal with visual representations of redox reactions, and further exploring if the visualizations provide any indications of the intended curriculum orientation. Chapter 3, Section 3.3 is a brief look on how practical work is presented in grade 10 chemistry textbooks and corresponding experimental textbooks from PR China, Taiwan and the Chinese minority in Malaysia. Specific instruments are adapted to analyze the type of learning, intended learning outcomes, inquiry level, and studentsa involvement, to give a basic overview of features of practical work in transferring the intended curriculum. This study explores how practical work links two domains of knowledge from observables to ideas, and makes a contribution to the body of research of practical work in secondary school chemistry education through a Chinese perspective. During the conduction on the aforementioned study, new Upper Secondary School Chemistry Curriculum Standard was released in 2017 (USSCCS) in PR China. Because the official curriculum standard serves as the guideline for textbook design, the release of the new curriculum standard inspired us to explore the differences between the new Upper Secondary School Chemistry Curriculum Standard (2017 USSCCS) and the prior Upper Secondary School Chemistry Curriculum Standard (2003 USSCCS), which are both officially released by the Ministry of Education (see Chapter 3, Section 3.4). Generally, these results show that intended curricula delivered by Taiwanese textbooks take a high degree of contextualization, while textbooks from Malaysia use a rather traditional approach. Textbooks from the Peoplea s Republic of China lie somewhere between the textbooks from Taiwan and Malaysia. Chapter 3 gives more details about the general information (Section 3.1) and richer details related to redox reactions (Section 3.2) and practical work (Section 3.3) in corresponding textbooks.