THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF ANALOGIES IN SECONDARY CHEMISTRY TEXTBOOKS

This paper describes an analogy classification framework used with hig h school chemistry textbooks. The framework takes into account aspects of past research into analogies in science education to allow for a s ystematic classification of textbook analogies based upon nine criteri a including chemistry content area. Many of the 93 analogies classifie d described abstract chemistry concepts such as atomic structure and b onding, however, the frequent use of simple analogies, and the scarcit y of stated limitations, are likely to create learning problems for st udents. In some textbooks, authors made use of margin spaces to includ e more analogies and these marginalised analogies often contained a pi ctorial component. Recommendations for further research into analogies in science education and possible methodological approaches are sugge sted.