Analysis of the Network of Plant-related Concepts in Secondary School Science Textbooks Based on the 2015 Revised Curriculum

The 2015 revised science curriculum aims to raise up creative and convergent talents required by the knowledge and information society. To achieve this goal, there have been changes such as restructuring the content system and reducing the amount of learning. Based on the direction of the 2015 revised curriculum, science textbooks are being developed by selecting, organizing the learning content. In the 2015 revised curriculum, plant-related concepts are presented in ‘plant and energy’ and ‘cellular respiration and photosynthesis’ in secondary school textbooks. Previous studies of analyzing textbooks based on the revised curriculum have limitations in analyzing the goal and inquiry activity type. It is not possible to analyze how the textbook text concepts are structured. Therefore, in this study, the network of plant-related concepts in textbooks based on the 2015 revised curriculum was analyzed. The study results are as follows. First, plant-related concepts in secondary textbooks show a hierarchical structure as a whole. Plant-related concepts in middle school and high school were presented hierarchically without overlapping. Second, there is a segmented concept that is not connected to other concepts, so supplementation is required. Third, the concepts presented in high school have rapidly increased. Based on this study, it is expected that the concepts presented in the curriculum and textbooks will not be segmented and the number of concepts will be appropriated in the next curriculum.