The Nature of Science as Represented in Chemistry Textbooks Used in Nigeria

Abstract

The development of science education in many countries is varied and diverse. However, one common goal of science education in the different contexts is the focus on scientific literacy. To promote scientific literacy, the Nature of Science (NoS) is one of the vital components for raising scientifically literate citizens. In view of this, the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA 2000) proposed that all those who are involved in science teaching and learning should have a common view of the NoS. In Nigeria, this view is interpreted to have informed the stronger advocacy for students to develop an understanding of the scientific enterprise as articulated in the nation’s policy document and revised science curricular. Therefore, this study aims to examine how NoS is represented in three Nigerian chemistry textbooks. The study draws from the NSTA document and literature—the analytical framework for the representations of NoS aspects, approaches used, and the content relation of NoS in the textbooks. Though comparatively few, the results indicated that NoS aspects of tentativeness, empirical nature, human endeavor, creativity, and imagination were the most cited in all the three textbooks. NoS aspects of theories and laws, subjectivity, and scientific methods were less mentioned, while the interdisciplinary nature of science, use of models, and science as a solitary pursuit were neglected in about two thirds of the textbooks. The results further revealed the dominance of implicit approach, followed by the historical approach used to integrate a few NoS aspects in the textbooks. The content relation of the NoS aspects were more of content-embeddedness than content-generic. Following these results, we conclude that the analyzed textbooks may not be adequate to promote scientific literacy in their present states but have the potential to contribute to scientific literacy among students; if revised to reflect recommendations, this study adds to existing literature on NoS representations in science textbooks.