Science and technology are constantly transforming our day-to-day living. Science
education has become of vital importance to prepare learners for this everchanging
world. Unfortunately, science education in South Africa is hampered
by under-qualified and inexperienced teachers. Textbooks of good quality can assist
teachers and learners and facilitate the development of science teachers. For
this reason thorough assessment of textbooks is needed to inform the selection of
good textbooks.
An investigation revealed that the available textbook evaluation instruments are
not suitable for the evaluation of the physical science textbooks in the South
African context. An instrument is needed that focusses on science education textbooks
and which prescribes the criteria, weights, evaluation procedure and rating
scheme that can ensure justifiable, transparent, reliable and valid evaluation results.
This study utilised elements from the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to
develop such an instrument and verified the reliability and validity of the instrument’s
evaluation results.
Development of the Instrument for the Evaluation of Science Education Textbooks
started with the formulation of criteria. Characteristics that influence the
quality of textbooks were identified from literature, existing evaluation instruments
and stakeholders’ concerns. In accordance with the AHP, these characteristics
or criteria were divided into categories or branches to give a hierarchical
structure. Subject experts verified the content validity of the hierarchy.
Expert science teachers compared the importance of different criteria. The data
were used to derive weights for the different criteria with the Expert Choice computer
application. A rubric was formulated to act as rating-scheme and score
sheet. During the textbook evaluation process the ratings were transferred to a
spreadsheet that computed the scores for the quality of a textbook as a whole as
well as for the different categories.
The instrument was tested on small scale, adjusted and then applied on a larger
scale. The results of different analysts were compared to verify the reliability of
the instrument. Triangulation with the opinions of teachers who have used the
textbooks confirmed the validity of the evaluation results obtained with the instrument.
Future investigations on the evaluation instrument can include the use
of different rating scales and limiting of criteria. / Thesis (M. Ed. (Didactics))
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:unisa/oai:umkn-dsp01.int.unisa.ac.za:10500/4041 |
| Date | 04 1900 |
| Creators | Swanepoel, Sarita |
| Contributors | Swanepoel, C. H. |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 1 online resource (xvii, 280 leaves) |
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