This research study examined whether or not the study activities of convergence science textbooks appropriately reflected the objectives and intent of the 2009 revised curriculum. This research study designed a three-dimensional(3D) analysis tool to achieve the research objectives. The study activities in the ‘Evolution of Life’ and ''Health of Humanity and Scientific Technology'' units of seven different convergence science textbooks were categorized into content scope, process scope and contextual scope education units and were analyzed using the 3D analysis tool. The themes and the number of the study activities, the methods and processes of the study activities, and the context of the study activities were analyzed in terms of the content scope, process scope and contextual scope, respectively, to confirm if the revised teaching and instruction methods and also the teaching and learning application examples designed to foster creativity and proper personality traits properly reflected the 2009 revised science curriculum.
The results of this research can be summarized as follows.
First, the analysis results for the content scope of the study activities confirmed that a similar number of study activities were included at 44 (53.7%) and 38 (46.3%) for the ‘Evolution of Life’ and ''Health of Humanity and Scientific Technology'' units, respectively. The results also confirmed that the number of themes included in ‘Evolution of Life’ was 26, which was 1.7 times more than the number of themes included in ''Health of Humanity and Scientific Technology''. This means that ‘Evolution of Life’ represents a relatively diverse range of academic themes. When comparing the number of study activities and themes, textbook D (21 units) included more study activities than textbook E (15 units), while textbook E (7 themes) included more themes than textbook D (6 units). This can be interpreted to mean that including a high number of study activities does not correspond to a broader coverage of the curriculum.
Second, the analysis results for the process scope of the study activities of the ‘Evolution of Life’ and ''Health of Humanity and Scientific Technology'' units confirmed that ‘Research’, ‘Discussion’, and ‘Experimenting’ were the most frequently included study activities methods and that ‘Field Trips’ or ‘Subject Research’ were not included as any of the study activities. The results confirmed that for the study activities of ‘Evolution of Life’, there were a similar number of basic process elements and integrated process elements at 31 and 28, respectively, and that for the study activities of ''Health of Humanity and Scientific Technology'' there was about double the number of basic process elements compared to that of integrated process elements. Also both education units were shown to have a biased number of ‘Data Analysis’ study activities, which is an integrated process element.
Third, the analysis results for the contextual scope of the study activities of the ‘Evolution of Life’ and ''Health of Humanity and Scientific Technology'' units confirmed that ‘Pure Science Based Contexts'' appeared 61.0% of the time with 50 contexts, and that ‘Nature and Environment Based Contexts'' appeared 1.2% of the time with 1 context. The ‘Evolution of Life’ unit was shown to be heavily biased towards ‘Pure Science Based Contexts'' while the ''Health of Humanity and Scientific Technology'' unit was shown to have an even distribution of contexts. This can be interpreted to mean that the ''Health of Humanity and Scientific Technology'' unit better reflects the STS (Science, Technology and Society) education goals emphasized in the 2009 revised science curriculum than the ‘Evolution of Life’ unit.
The results of this research study suggest that while convergence science textbooks mostly reflect the 2009 revised science curriculum, the areas that have not been appropriately or adequately reflected must be presented through the development of study activities in the form of diverse contents, processes and contextual scopes of study activities. This research study also suggests the need for teachers to redesign study activities while taking into consideration the abilities of students so that the 2009 revised science curriculum can be properly implemented.