The purpose of this study was to analyze the frequency, level and location of questions in the text in middle school according to the question levels of Bloom's cognitive filed. The object analyzed for this study was the Home economics area in the Tec...
The purpose of this study was to analyze the frequency, level and location of questions in the text in middle school according to the question levels of Bloom's cognitive filed. The object analyzed for this study was the Home economics area in the Technology & Home economics textbook in the middle school, which was used in 3 grades from 7th to 9th grade applied according to the 7th Educational Curriculum. Analyzed textbooks were selected 15 books per a grade produced from 5 publishing firms.
The study classified the cognitive field into 6 stages ranging from the knowledge, understanding, application, analysis, summary to the review according to the analysis criteria based on Bloom(1956)'s 『Taxonomy of Educational Objectives』and analyzed them. And the analysis criteria of the location of questions used the methods of 'Questions before reading', 'Questions during Reading' and 'Questions after Reading' classified by Kim Chag-Won's(1995).
The result of this study followed:
First, the biggest number of questions belonged to Blooms cognitive filed in Home economics text was in 1st grade(36.9%), following 2nd(33.6%) and 3th(29.5%).
The number of questions in Bloom's cognitive field were generally alike in each chapter, but specifically seeing, the chapter of 'Understanding Me & My Family' had the most questions(18.5%), and followed the chapter 'Teenagers' Nutrition & Diet(18.3%)' in the textbook of 1st grade, the chapter 'Material Management & Environment'(16.9%), 'Preparation & Management of Clothes'(16.7%) in 2nd grade's, the chapter 'Diet Management for Family'(15.0%) and the chapter 'Family Life & Living Space'(14.6%) in order. Therefore the result showed that the higher the grade rose, the less the number of questions of cognitive filed got.
Second, most questions the Home economics textbooks according to Bloom's cognitive filed consisted of those about the knowledge, understanding and application. And the most questions among them were those about understanding(28.9%), and followed those about application(28.3%), those about knowledge(21.8%). In the questions about analysis, summary and evaluation were gradually decreased into 8.6%, 6.8% and 5.6%, respectively. Concerning on the questions per grade, the questions of 1st and 3rd grades were made up of the areas of understanding(1st grade: 29.7%, 3rd grade: 32.4%), application (1st grade: 23.8%, 3rd grade: 29.7%), knowledge(1st grade: 22.2%, 3rd grade: 17.9%). Incase of 2nd grade, the number of questions about the application were the most (32.1%), and the questions of knowledge and understanding were same, separately (24.9%). The rest of analysis, summary and evaluation were shown in low distribution from 1st to 3rd grades.
Third, in case of the location of questions, the subcategory of Questions after Reading occupied almost half (49.2%) of all in Bloom's cognitive questions, the case of Questions During Reading was about 1/3, 36.7%, and the subcategory of Questions Before Reading was 14.1%. Looking the subcategories, the pre-knowing pattern occupied the most part in the area of Questions Before Reading. In case of Questions During Reading, trial (experience/activity) pattern was the most plentiful, and the explore patter was shown the most frequently in case of Questions After Reading. Of all sub-categories of Questions of Before, During and After Reading, it was found that the trial patterns occupied the most numerous.
As the result of analyzing textbooks according to publishing companies, 60% of all publishing companies's textbooks contained Bloom's cognitive questions in the 3 subcategories of Questions Before, During, After Reading. 20% of the companies's didn't contain the subcategory of Questions Before Reading in 1st and 2nd grades.
In case of the textbooks which contain the subcategory of Questions Before Reading, they suggested guide sentences or cases as learning guide.
Fourth, the rate of understanding questions was the highest as 43.2% in the Bloom's cognitive filed, and the application questions' rate were 28.4%, the knowledge questions' rate was 11.4% and the rates of analysis and evaluation were same as 7.8%. The rate of summary questions was appeared in the lowest of 1.4%. Analyzed the questions located in questions, the result showed that application-level questions in textbooks were the highest with 36.7%, and followed the understanding(25%), the analysis(10.7%), the summary(10.1%), the knowledge (9.9%), and the evaluation(7.7%). Regarding to the questions located after Reading, the knowledge question occupied the highest with 33.4%, and next was the understanding questions(26.8%), following the application questions(21.7%).