FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSION OF PROSPECTIVE BIOLOGY TEACHERS' EDUCATION: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF TEXTBOOKS

Abstract

Diana Hernawatia, Vita Meylania, Ari Hardiana

This study is to analyze the representation of textbooks through the results of focus group discussions conducted by prospective teacher students. The focus group discussion involved three discussion groups that were named according to the theme who was presented including the language group, the content group and the visual group. These results provide evidence that students prefer simple learning resources with short content explanations, some students prefer to be satisfied with explanations through visual displays and negative responses to the use of foreign languages. To be precise, students are more interested when textbooks are only a supplement to the learning process. However, making textbooks a part of the main learning process needs to be done gradually, due to the varying levels of student academic ability. In fact, the critical analytical results provide accurate images needed to help students deepen science content. One unit that is the best practice for all prospective teacher students is that being critical in science will be a starting point for being critical in other lessons. These results offer suggestions for teachers or lecturers to always expand student learning resources both textbooks and outside textbooks for future studies.