New Perspectives in Science Education

Learning process of the physics without a textbook is unimaginable, so the way of writing the textbook is important. In our work we deal with the curriculum in Slovak physics textbooks from viewpoint of the semantic network structure and then we investigate the modularity of this structure. The self-organized networks (networks created by natural way) show certain universality. These networks have scale invariant distribution (power law distribution) and parameter α has value between 2 and 5. In our textbook analysis we transform the text to a tripartite network and after that we perform network analysis of these networks. We found the same distribution as for networks that are created in a natural way. We have applied cluster analysis on the resulting network and we have acquired individual modules – clusters. These clusters reveal the true connectivity structure of the content and we have examined their properties. The cluster analysis divided the network into 13 clusters, the three largest clusters deal with the three basic state of matter – gaseous, liquid and solid state.
 

Keywords: Slovak physics textbooks, semantic structure of network, scale invariant distribution, clusters;

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