An Analysis of the Place of the History of Science in Chemistry Textbooks

Abstract

Many science educators have expressed the role and importance of the history of science in promoting scientific literacy. It is generally acknowledged that students should understand the social and cultural structure of science knowledge, in which students learn not only the concepts and principles offered by science but also the application areas of the information provided by science and the scientific knowledge they have created. From this point of view, the history of science emerges as a potential resource and a meaningful teaching strategy that can be used both in the teaching of scientific content and the nature of science. On the other hand, it is clear that textbooks are one of the essential components of science education, given their role in education. Textbooks are the primary source of information in the learning environment. It is the most important educational resource for students outside and beyond the teacher, and for the teacher, it is often the representative of the teaching program. Many teachers, especially novice teachers, construct the content and course of lessons according to the textbooks in their hands. From this point of view, this study investigates how much history of science is integrated in high school textbooks. For this purpose, appropriate textbooks (grades 9-12) taught by the Ministry of Education (MoNE) as a textbook in high school were examined. A qualitative research approach was followed in the study and document analysis was chosen as the study design. When each course book is examined, the sections containing the science history information are identified and taught carefully read. The quality of these sections in learning and teaching has been analyzed. Of the analyses, a scoring key was used, which allows scoring using a total of 13 criteria in conceptual, procedural, and contextual areas of the quality of science historical stories. As a result of the research, the history of science for conceptual, procedural, and contextual understanding has been included in high school chemistry textbooks, but this use is limited. While more importance is attached to scientific history for procedural understanding in books, it has been found that the use of the history of science is worthless for conceptual and contextual understanding.