Currently, the vocational school textbook system is operated on the “one outline, multiple textbook edition” policy. Textbooks are first edited by publishers based on curriculum guidelines, and then they will be reviewed and approved by the Ministry of Education to ensure its quality. Multiple copies of textbooks allow teachers greater flexibility to choose and interpret the materials. This study aims at examining the textbook usage of general subject teachers at vocational schools. Through quantitative methods, 2,052 valid copies of surveys were collected with the response rate of 73.1%. In term of qualitative data collection, five focus group interviews were held with the participation of 40 general subject teachers from vocational schools. Based on results of data analysis, following conclusions and suggestions are proposed:?
1.The reliance of general subject teachers at vocational schools on the textbook could be understood as follows. According to quantitative and qualitative data respectively, 86.4% and 63.6% of the teachers relied on textbooks heavily; 6.3% and 14.2 % moderately; and 9.1% and 22.2% lightly. Both quantitative and qualitative data showed that general subject teachers rely on textbooks in their teaching.?
2.Among general subject teachers at vocational schools, academic track teachers relied on textbooks more than non-academic track teachers. The difference between the two groups was significant (>.05).?
3.As for the detailed situation of the textbook usage, 39.9% used the textbook as the major material but also adopted other supplement texts; 36.4% would change the sequence of the chapters or take off some chapters to meet personal teaching needs; 16.7% taught completely the same sequence of textbook chapters; and the rest made up 7%.?
4.Among the general subject teachers, teachers of national defense education and subjects such as mathematics, Chinese and English relied on textbooks most. Teachers of physical education, art and living technology relied on textbooks least. A lot of physical education teachers (63 teachers) admitted they asked students to purchase the textbook, but seldom used it.?
5.Suggestions based on the research results include: (1) The textbook review and approval system for subjects that are part of college entrance exams should be treated even more seriously. As for textbooks for art and living technology, our suggestions are: A. Students should not be required to buy textbooks for art and living technology. B. When the 12-year public education program is carried out, technical high schools may use the same art and living technology textbooks as academic track high school. In other words, there is no need to review art and living technology textbooks for technical high schools. C. Art and living technology textbooks do not need to be reviewed and approved. (2) As the curriculum guidelines are revised for the 12-year public education program, the consistency and hours of the textbooks should be considered and revised to make it more reasonable so that the situation of having too much content or not enough teaching hours could be avoided. (3) The textbook review and approval committee should include members who are current vocational school teachers to avoid problems such as overlapped content with junior high school curriculum.?
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