Textbook tasks in the Norwegian school subject natural sciences: what views of science do they mediate?

Andersson-Bakken, Emilia; Jegstad, Kirsti Marie; Bakken, Jonas

doi:10.1080/09500693.2020.1756516

Cited by 23 publications

(21 citation statements)

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“…The overall poor results correspond to previous findings which showed how textbooks often focus, in geography and science education, on the end product of science, seen as a truth, rather than on a view of science as a construct up for debate [44,70,91]. If tasks are "mediating tools for the culture of science and science learning in school" [70] (p. 1332), then comparison tasks should leave more autonomy in the determination of the comparison units, elements and their weighting as well as include argumentation to support and reflect on the comparison process. Indeed, argumentation contributes to the development of other geographical competencies and to understanding [40] (pp.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

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How Geography Textbook Tasks Promote Comparison Competency—An International Analysis

Simon

Budke

2020

Sustainability

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Comparison is an important competency for gaining and linking knowledge. It can be learned in geography classes to help students understand complex concepts and develop autonomous geographical thinking. However, we do not currently have any model to assess comparison as a competency in geography classes. In addition, little is known about how textbook tasks promote comparison competency. Therefore, in this study, a competency model for comparison in geography education was developed. It consists of four dimensions of comparison competency, which relate either to the mastering of comparison processes or to content-related elements of comparisons. Then, via a qualitative content analysis and descriptive statistics, the competency model was used to assess which dimensions of comparison competency were featured in 981 tasks from 20 German, English and French textbooks. Results showed that comparison tasks largely failed to promote autonomous and argumentative comparison process planning. However, numerous tasks performed better on the content-related aspects of comparison. Thus, the competency model presented in this study is a valuable tool to assess and enhance comparison competency in geography education and to promote students’ autonomous geographical thinking.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

“…Tasks are paratextual elements that engage students in a specific action [70] (p. 1325). Tasks, as questions, investigations, activities, are a central exercise in the learning process and a major tool to help students gain competency [45] (p. 10), [71] (p. 24).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Geography Textbook Tasks Promote Comparison Competency—An International Analysis

Simon

Budke

2020

Sustainability

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“…We reached similar conclusions in two previous studies of tasks in Norwegian science (Andersson-Bakken et al, 2020) and language arts (Bakken & Andersson-Bakken, 2017) textbooks for uppersecondary school published after a curriculum revision in 2013. Since 2006, the Norwegian school system has been governed by a competence-based curriculum focusing on basic skills such as literacy and numeracy (Dale et al, 2011), but our analyses showed that the textbook tasks in both science and language arts were more in line with the content-centred curriculum of the 1990s.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(p. 162) A major source of tasks for both classroom activities and homework is the textbook (Gracin, 2018;Johansson, 2006). A textbook typically contains hundreds of tasks, while for textbooks in some subjects, such as mathematics and science, the number of tasks can be greater than one thousand (Andersson-Bakken et al, 2020;Gracin, 2018).If tasks, as Doyle claims, are closely linked to both what students learn in a school subject and how the students learn while studying that subject, one could expect that when the curriculum changes, so will the textbook tasks. Previous research on textbook tasks, however, shows that the types of tasks commonly used in a particular school subject remain more or less the same decade after decade (Gracin, 2018;Limberg, 2016;W.…”

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confidence: 99%

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The textbook task as a genre

Bakken

Andersson-Bakken²

2021

Journal of Curriculum Studies

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Schools today face the challenge of preparing students to live, work, and prosper in a rapidly changing world. As a response to this global challenge, Norway has adopted a national curriculum focusing on the development of 21 st -century skills. In this study, we investigate if and how the tasks in science and language arts textbooks in upper-secondary school have changed after the curriculum reform. We conduct a content analysis of 5,067 tasks in science and language arts textbooks and compare them to tasks in textbooks published before the reform, which we analysed in two previous studies. The results show only a marginal change in tasks in each subject, indicating that the tasks do not present the students with sufficient opportunities to practice the competences highlighted in the new curriculum. As a possible explanation regarding why textbook tasks in Norway-as well as a number of other countries-appear to change so little over time, we advance the hypothesis that the formulation of tasks in textbooks is influenced and constrained by culturally specific genre norms. These norms may represent a challenge to curriculum implementation and school change, and it is therefore important to raise awareness of textbook tasks. KEYWORDSTextbook; task; genre; curriculum reform First, a person will acquire information -facts, concepts, principles, solutions -involved in the particular task that is accomplished. Second, a person will practice operations -memorizing, classifying, inferring, analyzing -used to obtain or produce the information demanded by the task. (p. 162) A major source of tasks for both classroom activities and homework is the textbook (Gracin, 2018;Johansson, 2006). A textbook typically contains hundreds of tasks, while for textbooks in some subjects, such as mathematics and science, the number of tasks can be greater than one thousand (Andersson-Bakken et al., 2020;Gracin, 2018).If tasks, as Doyle claims, are closely linked to both what students learn in a school subject and how the students learn while studying that subject, one could expect that when the curriculum changes, so will the textbook tasks. Previous research on textbook tasks, however, shows that the types of tasks commonly used in a particular school subject remain more or less the same decade after decade (Gracin, 2018;Limberg, 2016;W. Yang et al., 2019). Furthermore, the information that students can acquire and the operations they practice when working on commonly used textbook CONTACT Jonas Bakken,

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The research trends and contributions of science education during the COVID‐19 pandemic: A narrative systematic literature review of publications in selected journals

Susilayati,

Hardyanto,

Supriyadi

et al. 2024

Review of Education

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The COVID‐19 global pandemic was a socio‐scientific issue (SSI) that had an impact on various aspects of life including education. Educational institutions adapted to new learning, teaching and assessment approaches to be effective in responding to the pandemic. This study aims to determine the research trends and contributions of science education during the COVID‐19 pandemic in order to follow up on possible impacts and other crises in the future. The study involved a narrative systematic literature review of 898 articles published in three selected journals from 2018 to 2021. The analysis was divided into two stages. First, to compare research trends between 2018 and 2019 as the baseline with research trends for 2020–2021 during COVID‐19. Second, to systematically analyse the content of articles published between 2020 and 2021 to explore the contribution of science education amidst COVID‐19 descriptively. The results show that the empirical type of research during the COVID‐19 pandemic has increased compared to the baseline. Research topics on learning contexts dominate the baseline and amidst the pandemic, but ‘teaching’ topics are current and future trends in science education research. The three selected journals contributed many publications related to understanding and resolving the crisis during the COVID‐19 pandemic directly and indirectly. In addition, science education amidst COVID‐19 contributes to preparing the younger generation to become resilient citizens capable of dealing with crises. Direct evidence of preparing resilient citizens amidst the COVID‐19 pandemic is contributed by technological and pedagogical knowledge, content and context knowledge, futurising education, and student mobility programmes in science education. Furthermore, indirect evidence is contributed by science education publications published in the three selected journals between 2020 and 2021. Most publications are carried out at the high school level. More articles in the integrated sciences are published than in separate disciplines such as physics, chemistry, biology and earth/space science. Furthermore, the details of research trends and contributions of science education amidst the COVID‐19 pandemic are discussed.

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Textbook tasks in the Norwegian school subject natural sciences: what views of science do they mediate?

Abstract: View related articlesView Crossmark data Citing articles: 2 View citing articles Textbook tasks in the Norwegian school subject natural sciences: what views of science do they mediate?

Cited by 23 publications

References 55 publications

How Geography Textbook Tasks Promote Comparison Competency—An International Analysis

How Geography Textbook Tasks Promote Comparison Competency—An International Analysis

The textbook task as a genre

The research trends and contributions of science education during the COVID‐19 pandemic: A narrative systematic literature review of publications in selected journals

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