Representation of Nature of Science (NOS) in Malaysian Physics Textbooks

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-390-0_46How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Nature of Science; NOS Presentation Pattern; Physics Textbook

Abstract

The study presents an analysis of two Malaysian Physics textbooks used in all government schools for 16 and 7 years old students, which are Physics Form 4 and Physics Form 5 textbooks in terms of the Nature of Science (NOS), focusing on how different aspects of NOS are represented within the textbooks. This study was using a quantitative approach to analyze the textbook, utilizing the Atlas.ti software for textbook content analysis. Atlas.ti aids in organizing the textbooks’ content by categorizing it according to various NOS aspects through coding. The study identifies several NOS aspects highlighted in the textbook, including empirical, inferential, creative, theory-driven, tentative, myth of scientific method, scientific theory, scientific law, and social dimension of science. After analyzing the NOS aspects according to units of analysis, a scale ranging from + 3 to -3 is applied to assess the accuracy of NOS representation in the textbooks. The finding of the analysis reveals that inferential approach shows a consistent representation in the textbooks while the tentative show the least aspects that was presented in the textbooks. Following to this analysis, hierarchical cluster analysis was conducted as a follow up analysis to identify patterns of NOS among chapters after the categorization. The analysis identified four clusters known as Overall, the representation of NOS aspects in both textbooks are poor and still unsatisfactory that portrays implicit and informed representations. The dominant pattern found in the textbooks is descriptive and factual manner which only emphasized on the content knowledge.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Alya Nazirah Azaha
AU  - N. F. Abd Rahman
AU  - Ashmimi Maisara Asha’ari
AU  - Nurul Faizah Ahmad
AU  - Anis Diyana Halim
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/05/14
TI  - Representation of Nature of Science (NOS) in Malaysian Physics Textbooks
BT  - Proceedings of the 6th Sriwijaya University Learning and Education International Conference 2024 (SULE-IC 2024)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 555
EP  - 573
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-390-0_46
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-390-0_46
ID  - Azaha2025
ER  -