The purpose of this study is to investigate the transition of the articulation of animal-related concepts in the life science as the national curriculum is revised. The curriculum includes the 7th curriculum, the 2009 revised curriculum, and the 2015 revised curriculum. The life science animal domain was divided into three units: Animals and Energy, Stimulus and Reaction, and Reproduction and Development. For this study, one elementary school textbook and two types of middle school and highschool textbooks were selected and analyzed. The curriculum achievement standard of the animal domain and the texts from the textbooks were transcribed and the concepts related to animals were extracted. Extracted concepts were analyzed semantic network analysis using the NetMiner 4.0 program.
In order to examine the articulation of animal-related concepts in the curriculum and textbooks, first, the concept networks from the curriculum and the textbook each were drawn and then the structures of the concept networks were analyzed. Second, we analyzed the horizontal articulation of the contents in the animal domain. Third, the vertical articulation between elementary, middle, and high school schools in the animal domain was analyzed. Fourth, we analyzed the articulation between curriculum and textbook by drawing a articulating network targeting the concept of textbook articulated with curriculum.
The results of this study were shown as the following. First, the articulation between the curriculum and the textbook concept was well established. The core contents and main contents of the unit were fully revealed only by the concept articulated with the concept of the curriculum achievement standard. When writing textbooks, it is necessary to reduce the number of concepts presented in textbooks by focusing on the concepts presented in the achievement criteria and related concepts. Second, there was a lack of horizontal articulation of units in the animal domain. Animal and Energy units and Stimulus and Response units have a horizontal articulation with respect to hormone regulation. Reproductive and Development units are not well articulated horizontally with other units. In order to secure horizontal articulation, which is a problem of science curriculum, it is necessary to check the relevance of contents of units and present basic concepts. Third, with the revision of the curriculum, the vertical articulation between elementary, middle, and high schools in the animal domain was relatively well articulated without any significant change. In elementary, middle and high school, the basic contents were repeated, and further development learning was conducted in middle and high school. However, the Reproductive and Development unit showed a lack of articulation between elementary school and middle and high school due to the difference of learning contents.
Based on the results, it is expected that follow-up studies will be conducted to secure the articulation of animal-related concepts on the basis of the main concepts to be presented in the curriculum achievement standards and related concepts.