Questions as a basis for comparison of biology textbooks and workbooks

Abstract

This study focused on the analysis of three biology teaching sets and one textbook for 8 and 9 grade of elementary school. As a criterion we used thenumber and structure of questions assessable by Bloom’s taxonomy of the cognitive domain. It is obvious from the differences in the number and type of questions that the authors of the teaching materials differed in their understanding of the role of textbooks and workbooks in the teaching process. The analysed teaching sets included between 1.1 and 1.4 questions per page; most of them found in workbooks. The exception was one textbook with no questions for the students.The analysis of the questions using Bloom’s scale of cognitive levels showed statistically significant differences between teaching sets. The average cognitive level of the questions in a teaching set was between 1.7 and 2.1. The questions represent only one of indicators that show to what extent the didactic aspect was considered in the teaching sets, but the results suggest biology teaching material for elementary school is overly focused on lower cognitive levels, mostly recognition, not providing enough knowledge of higher cognitive levels.

Keywords

• textbooks
• evaluation
• Bloom’s taxonomy of the cognitive domain