Improving secondary school students' Scientific literacy ability through the design of better science textbooks

Abstract

This study assessed ways by which science textbooks can be designed and developed to increase scientific literacy in secondary school students. . Here inThe research and development method was used. The draft of the new science textbooks was incorporated into school instruction using a non-equivalent control group design with pretest and posttest measures. The instruments used comprised a test of textbook quality test, a text’s main idea readability test, and a scientific literacy ability test. Data on text’s main idea’s readability and textbook quality tests were analyzed qualitatively; an increase in scientific literacy was determined by the percentages of average normalized gains, Cohen’s d and t-test. The results reveal that the science textbooks developed in from the research have medium to high readability for of their main ideas, appropriate quality to be used as students’ handbooks or books accompanying teaching and learning, and can significantly increase scientific literacy.