Analysis of the Analogies in Chemistry Content of Science Textbooks: The 5th Version of Secondary Science Curriculum

Although analogies have been used frequently in science textbooks, little is currently known about how they used. At the initial stage of studying effective use of analogies in science teaching, an analysis of the analogies in chemistry content of science textbooks developed under the 5th version of secondary science curriculum was conducted. The contents analyzed were chemistryrelated units of 15 Science textbooks for middle school students and all the units of 8 Science II- 2 and 5 Chemistry textbooks for high school students. Analogies in the textbooks were identified and classified according to the following six criteria: (1) the nature of the shared analog and target attributes; (2) the format of the analogies; (3) the degree of abstraction of the analog and target; (4) the extent of mapping; (5) the 따tifici ality of the contexts; and (6) the use of the term analogy. A total of 127 analogies were identified from textbooks (an average 4.5 analogies per textbook). Among the 60 types of analogies found, only one analogy was used over 10 times, and 82% were used less than twice. A considerable proportion of the analogies were found in the units of Atomic Structure" (43%) and Chemical Reaction" (40%). These results suggested that textbook authors should recognize the existence of various analogies and use more analogies in textbooks. Major findings from the analyses with the six criteria are as follows: (1) Functional analogies (48%) outnumbered structural ones (39%); (2) Pictorial analogies (55%) outnumbered verbal ones (46%); (3) 75% of analogies had abstract target and concrete analog; (4) Simple and enriched analogies (47% and 34%) outnumbered extended ones (19%); (5) Analogies in everyday contexts (74%) outnumbered artificial ones (26%); and (6) Only 18% of the analogies included any statement identifying the strategy such as an analogy", analog", or analogous". It is suggested that extended or enriched analogies, analogies in everyday contexts, and pictorial analogies should be used more.이 연구는 서울대학교 사범대학 발전 기금 학술연구비의 지원에 의해 수행되었음