Analysis of grade 8 chemistry student textbook contents vis-à-vis bloom’s revised taxonomy

Abstract

Analysis of textbooks in different aspects is pivotal to improvise the overall expected goal and outcome of textbooks. The overall information  accumulated as a nation on different textbooks is also scanty. Therefore, the objective of this study was to analysis grade 8 chemistry student textbook contents vis-á-vis bloom’s revised taxonomy for the cognitive domain. The six levels of BRT cognitive domain were used as framework for undertaking the content analysis. The BRT content analysis result revealed that the learning objectives and activities of the textbook mainly focus on the lower order thinking levels, while experiments are more of at the higher order thinking levels of BRT. Moreover, the chi-square test result showed the difference between lower and higher BRT level of learning objectives, experiments and activities are statistically significant. This value indicated that the content of the textbook is not encouraging students to be active. Therefore, the learning objectives, somehow experiments and activities of the textbook should be organized in a manner that equips students with higher order thinking level of learners in the learning process. This implies grade 8 chemistry student textbook should be revised in a way scaffolding students to higher order thinking level.