한국과 미국 초등학교 교과서에 나타난 과학의 본성 비교 분석

Abstract

The national reform document, Science for All Americans (AAAS, 1990), and the Next Generation Science Standards (NRC, 2012) emphasize the importance of the nature of science in guiding science educators in accurately portraying science to students. Therefore, it is important that textbook materials convey an accurate conception of the nature of science. This study employs content analysis to examine the content of textbooks in US and Korea elementary science textbooks with regard to the four aspects of the nature of science: (a) nature of scientific knowledge; (b) nature of scientific inquiry; (c) nature of scientific thinking; and (d) nature of interactions among science, technology, and society (Chiappetta, Fillman, & Sethna, 2004). Intercoder reliability was determined by calculating Cohen`s kappa (Cohen, 1960). Findings show that while US elementary science textbooks are not balanced in presenting the four aspects of the nature of science regardless of the publishing companies, the presentation of the nature of science in Korean elementary science textbooks have better balanced treatment of the four themes across the grade levels. On the other hand, both US and Korean elementary science textbooks are attempting to convey an idea of what science is by emphasizing scientific knowledge and investigation.