Association between upper-secondary school biology curricula and textbooks in Nigeria and Finland - A comparative co-occurence network analysis

We examined the association between curriculum standards and biology textbooks from Nigeria and Finland based on the components of scientific literacy (SL), namely scientific knowledge and competences, learning contexts, and attitudes towards science. By means of content and co-occurrence network analysis we systematically determined the degree of association among the curriculum materials. The results indicate that biology curricula and textbooks from both countries overlap in terms of scientific knowledge and competences, whereas learning contexts, epistemic knowledge and attitudes towards science differ in how they relate to the other SL components. Our findings also show that a combination of content and network analysis is a useful approach to examining the association between science-curriculum standards and textbooks.