Science textbooks as questioning and problem-based teaching and learning promoters : change or continuity?

Abstract

High-level questioning is the starting stone of Problem-Based Learning (PBL). This student centred teaching approach is especially appropriate for complex themes, as these are more likely to include real life problems. Sustainability on Earth is the Portuguese National Curriculum theme that better fits this criterion. This paper concentrates on the way Portuguese science textbooks focusing on Sustainability on Earth deal with questioning, in order to find out whether they may foster continuity with regard to teacher-centred teaching approaches or whether they rather seem to promote change towards innovative student-centred problem-based science learning. Three Physical and three Natural Sciences textbooks were content analysed with regard to the way they deal with questions and the cognitive level of the questions they include. Results indicate that textbooks: include a considerable amount of questions; use questions in different ways and for diverse purposes; tend to prefer low-level cognitive questions; hardly include problem-oriented questions.