This study compared the instructional objectives of laboratory work in Korean and U. S. high
school biology textbooks using Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy.
In Korean textbooks, ‘conceptual knowledge’ was the primary constituent of the objectives in
the knowledge dimension and was followed by ‘procedural knowledge\'. There was, however,
a much less proportion of ‘factual knowledge’ or ‘meta-cognition knowledge’. The primary
constituent of the objectives in the cognitive process dimension was ‘understand’, followed by
‘apply’ and ‘remember’. The proportion of ‘analyze’, ‘evaluate’, or ‘create’ was much less.
In U. S. textbooks, ‘conceptual knowledge’ was also the primary constituent of the objectives
in the knowledge dimension, followed by ‘procedural knowledge’ as in Korean textbooks; but
the proportion of ‘meta-cognition knowledge’ was more than that of the ‘factual knowledge’
unlike Korean textbooks. On the other hand, ‘understand’ was also the primary constituent of
the objectives in the cognitive process dimension, followed by ‘apply’; while the proportion of
‘create’ was considerably more, that of ‘remember’ was much less.
In the knowledge dimension, the proportion of ‘factual knowledge’ or ‘conceptual knowledge
in Korean textbooks was greater, but that of ‘procedural knowledge’ or ‘meta-cognition
knowledge’ was less than in U. S. textbooks. On the other hand, in the cognitive process
dimension, the proportion of ‘remember’ or ‘understand’ in Korean textbooks was more, but
that of ‘evaluate’ or ‘create’ was less than in U. S. textbooks.