Abstract

Because of the extensive use of science textbooks in instruction and the dominant role of textbook questions in learning science content, it becomes imperative to examine the questions of science textbooks. The purpose of this study is to analyze the questions of two secondary school physics textbooks in Greece (aimed at 14-year-old students), from a content perspective. For this purpose, 841 questions totally from both textbooks (317 from the first textbook and 524 from the second) were detected and analyzed. The analysis of the questions from a content perspective was realized with the help of a coding scheme based on the descriptions of the curriculum emphases given by Van Driel, Bulte, and Verloop (2007). Each question was coded according to one of the three curriculum emphases discerned: “Fundamental Physics”, “Physics, Technology and Society” or “Knowledge Development in Physics”. This analysis has allowed the recording of the distribution of the questions in the physics textbooks according to the above coding scheme. It was found that both textbooks’ questions appeared to focus relatively most on “Fundamental Physics”, and relatively least on “Physics, Technology and Society” and “Knowledge Development in Physics”. The above results can be useful for both science teachers and school textbooks authors as well. The study concludes with a discussion and recommendations for future research.