Evaluation of Czech Non-Chemical Vocational School Chemistry Textbooks' Text Difficulty

Abstract

The paper follows the first author's continuous work on chemistry textbook analysis. In the previous paper published in CERP, attention was given to the procedure and results for analysing text-difficulty in lower-secondary chemistry textbooks in Czechia. In this paper, attention was given to non-chemical vocational school chemistry textbooks. They are intended for the most numerous group of upper-secondary students. The goal of the study was to assess the to what extent could students read the textbook texts on their own with appropriate understanding. Therefore, only the textual component was evaluated. The same method (Nestler-Prucha-Pluskal) as in the previous paper was used to analyse the textbooks' text-difficulty (readability). The results show there are two books which are suitable for students' own learning. However, there are four textbooks which contain text of high difficulty, including too many scientific terms that they are suitable as teacher's guide through terms rather than student's textbooks. The analysis may serve teachers with their textbook choice as well as researchers who operate in the same field who can easily adopt the methodology and compare results.