How do Chinese and Egyptian science textbooks differ? A cross-country comparative research

Abstract

Textbooks have a crucial role in shaping students' knowledge, behaviors, and attitudes in different school subjects. This study compares the structure and content of science textbooks of grade nine in Egypt and China to reveal the common and different features in the textbook design. It opts for a horizontal analysis of four science textbooks in the associated countries. The results revealed that the distribution of science subjects has partial similarities to some extent among the preparatory stage between the Chinese and Egyptian science textbooks besides the overlapping in the associated topics, presenting Biology as a common subject of interest. Moreover, the number of activities distributed within units and subjects have the highest shares in the Chinese textbooks, and most of the activities in the Egyptian textbooks focused on Chemistry and Physics subjects. In addition to the structure analysis, this study also explored the textbooks content in both countries, covering three dimensions: (1) cognitive expectations, (2) learning goals, and (3) efficiency of illustration. The results provide valuable insights for textbook designers and curriculum developers to enhance the quality of science curricula and textbooks. Therefore, the study recommends considering instructional design and lesson plans when distributing the learning activities and developing international standards for designing school science textbooks.

Keywords

• Textbooks comparison
• Structure analysis
• Content analysis
• Cognitive expectations
• Science textbook