Science textbooks as research objects: a bibliographic review

Abstract

Textbooks have been research objects from different perspectives; consequently, much knowledge about the characteristics of textbooks and their impact on science education has been dispersed. Therefore, the need to organize the main contributions of these papers is observed. To achieve this, 13 specific scientific journals were analyzed and the articles related to science textbooks were selected according to their titles, abstracts and keywords. The objectives, framework, methodology, results and conclusions were considered. The papers were characterized, and our findings about the most frequent difficulties and challenges of science education were shown. A synthesis of this nature can provide information for the production of science textbooks, and it can expose the aspects that require further research.