Visual representation of optical content in China’s and Singapore’s junior secondary physics textbooks
Visual representation in school textbooks plays an important role for physics teaching and learning. The integration of graphics with text has drawn attention of physics educators in recent years due to the close relationship between graphics and relevant text. The purpose of this study is to examin...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
American Physical Society
2022-11-01
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| Series: | Physical Review Physics Education Research |
| Online Access: | http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.18.020138 |
| _version_ | 1811215822070218752 |
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| author | Bing Wei Chengran Wang Lihua Tan |
| author_facet | Bing Wei Chengran Wang Lihua Tan |
| author_sort | Bing Wei |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Visual representation in school textbooks plays an important role for physics teaching and learning. The integration of graphics with text has drawn attention of physics educators in recent years due to the close relationship between graphics and relevant text. The purpose of this study is to examine visual representation of optical content in three physics textbooks commonly used in China and Singapore. Based on a revised version of graphical analysis protocol, this study focuses on two aspects of visual representation: (i) presentation of graphics, and (ii) integration of graphics with corresponding text. The content analysis approach was adopted as the research methodology with 115 graphics taken from the three physics textbooks being the analysis target. The results show that the three textbooks had considerable differences in terms of graphical presentations and that they contained a small percentage of high systematical representations. On integration of graphics with text, each textbook was found to be unique. Based on the results of this study, some recommendations are provided for visual representation in physics textbooks so as to enhance the effectiveness of textbooks on teaching and learning, such as highlighting physical and semantic integration of text with graphics. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-12T06:28:52Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-1fe66c1bd38446589adce94479fc5573 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2469-9896 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-12T06:28:52Z |
| publishDate | 2022-11-01 |
| publisher | American Physical Society |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Physical Review Physics Education Research |
| spelling | doaj.art-1fe66c1bd38446589adce94479fc55732022-12-22T03:44:04ZengAmerican Physical SocietyPhysical Review Physics Education Research2469-98962022-11-0118202013810.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.18.020138Visual representation of optical content in China’s and Singapore’s junior secondary physics textbooksBing WeiChengran WangLihua TanVisual representation in school textbooks plays an important role for physics teaching and learning. The integration of graphics with text has drawn attention of physics educators in recent years due to the close relationship between graphics and relevant text. The purpose of this study is to examine visual representation of optical content in three physics textbooks commonly used in China and Singapore. Based on a revised version of graphical analysis protocol, this study focuses on two aspects of visual representation: (i) presentation of graphics, and (ii) integration of graphics with corresponding text. The content analysis approach was adopted as the research methodology with 115 graphics taken from the three physics textbooks being the analysis target. The results show that the three textbooks had considerable differences in terms of graphical presentations and that they contained a small percentage of high systematical representations. On integration of graphics with text, each textbook was found to be unique. Based on the results of this study, some recommendations are provided for visual representation in physics textbooks so as to enhance the effectiveness of textbooks on teaching and learning, such as highlighting physical and semantic integration of text with graphics.http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.18.020138 |
| spellingShingle | Bing Wei Chengran Wang Lihua Tan Visual representation of optical content in China’s and Singapore’s junior secondary physics textbooks Physical Review Physics Education Research |
| title | Visual representation of optical content in China’s and Singapore’s junior secondary physics textbooks |
| title_full | Visual representation of optical content in China’s and Singapore’s junior secondary physics textbooks |
| title_fullStr | Visual representation of optical content in China’s and Singapore’s junior secondary physics textbooks |
| title_full_unstemmed | Visual representation of optical content in China’s and Singapore’s junior secondary physics textbooks |
| title_short | Visual representation of optical content in China’s and Singapore’s junior secondary physics textbooks |
| title_sort | visual representation of optical content in china s and singapore s junior secondary physics textbooks |
| url | http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.18.020138 |
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