Analogy is often used as an effective way to facilitate comprehending and learning of the new concept. Many teachers and scholars agree that the use of analogy is effective in the area of science teaching. The purpose of this study is to find which biological analogies is using in secondary textbooks and the effect of representative simple analogies. And we are supposed to suggest an educational alternative about analogies in textbooks.
First of all, We analyzed analogies used in biology chapters of middle school science textbooks. Analogies were classified into the following criteria : regions of the textbook including analogies, types, explanatory ways, roles of analogies.
A total of 216 analogies were found in biology chapters of the middle school science textbooks. Most of analogies were included in the contents of the text. More structural, verbal, concrete/concrete and simple analogies were included in biology chapters of middle school science textbooks. When the analogies were explained in the textbooks, the term "analogy", limitations of analogy and causal relations were rarely mentioned. But the analogies related to everyday contexts were frequently used. More than 70% of analogies took roles as understanding aids. The number of analogies used varied considerably according to the publishing company and the domain. Small number of analogies were commonly used in almost all kinds of textbooks, but newly developed ones were used in only one kind of textbook.
Secondly, we made a comparative analysis of analogies used in biology chapters of middle school science textbooks, high school science textbooks and high school biology textbooks. In addition, this study investigated comprehensive tendency of analogies used in biology chapters of secondary school.
Total number of analogies was 810 in the biology chapters of secondary school and 490 kinds of analogies were included. The frequency of used analogy per 10 pages became less on high grade in biology chapters of middle school. In biology chapters of high school, it became more with higher grade. There were 51 kinds of commonly used analogies between school years in whole analogies. The frequency of common analogies was presented 266. Most patterns and roles of common analogies were the same as that of whole analogies but it was higher than most patterns and roles of whole analogies.
Thirdly, Analogy in biology education is often used as a tool to conceptualize abstract science concept. To construct newly good analogies, researches on what kind of analogies are being used in current biology textbooks are prerequisites. In this study, we made a comparative analysis of analogies in korean, american, english, japanese and singaporean high school biology textbooks. This study collected and classified analogies in the textbooks according to the following criteria: nations, research domains, publishers. Total number of analogies was 1097 in all biology textbooks. There were 573 analogies in the korean textbooks, 295 analogies in american textbooks, 76 analogies in the english textbooks, 31 analogies in the japanese textbooks and 122 analogies in the singaporean textbooks. There were little difference between all nations in the patterns and roles of whole analogies. But there are distinct difference in the frequency of analogies depending on the research domain. American textbooks presented of good and unique analogies with higher level of the frequency.
Finally, this study is to find out the effect of used analogies on the high school biology textbooks for effective biology teaching and learning. This study developed a control texts with no analogy, simple analogy texts, systematic analogy texts on the basis of high school biology textbooks. A one way ANOVA was performed to examine the effect of text treatments. The results indicated that the simple analogy was more effective than the systematic analogy. But we found that students wrote the answer including simple analogies. This was proved disadvantages of analogy. we need to be cautious in using simple analogies of teaching and learning of the biology concepts for students.
To help students'' effective understanding of various biology concepts, it is necessary to replace useless simple analogies with real pictures and actual rate and require to introduce newly good analogies into our high school biology textbooks from other nations and to research the application of analogy on the textbooks.