Content analysis of photoelectric effect presented in high school physics textbooks

This study was conducted to investigate the description of the photoelectric effect presented in the physics textbooks of the 2015 revised curriculum and to draw implications for the 2022 revised curriculum. For this purpose, 10 textbooks, both Physics I and physics II textbooks, that had been developed by the same publisher were analyzed. After examining the overall composition of the content on photoelectric effect presented in the physics textbooks, we established three analysis criteria: the inquiry activity, the experimental method and phenomenon explanation, and the interpretation of the photoelectric effect according to the model. Then, a detailed analysis was conducted according to these criteria. The results showed that Physics I textbooks tended to focus on the application of the photoelectric effect, and Physics II textbooks tended to focus on the explanation of the photoelectric effect. However, the structure of the detailed content of each textbook was different. In particular, in some textbooks, essential content was omitted, and the hierarchy of the content in the Physics I and the Physics II textbooks was unclear. In addition, the same contents were described repeatedly. Finally, the implications for the 2022 revised curriculum that can be derived from the results of this study are discussed.