What high school biology teachers say about their textbook use: A descriptive study

This article reports the findings from a study that examined how high school biology teachers describe their instructional use of reading and textbooks. In the study, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected—by self‐report mail questionnaire and personal interview, respectively. Eighty percent of 184 sampled teachers responded to the questionnaire, and, of these, a subsample of 16 teachers—selected to be broadly representative of the questionnaire sample—were interviewed subsequently with their instructional materials present to increase recall. We found that biology teachers modified their use of textbooks according to the academic level of the biology class that they taught. In lower academic level classes, teachers provided students with many reading activities but expected them to learn biology content in class. In higher academic level classes, teachers expected students to learn from both independent reading and classroom instruction. Biology teachers viewed both reading and inquiry activities as important to learning biology, but they appeared unsure of how to incorporate reading comprehension strategies into their science instruction.