Students Perception of Moral Education Textbooks Design Components and Learnability

Textbooks are one of the most fundamental learning and teaching tools used in schools all around the world (Nicholls, 2003). Today's technology allows students to access a variety of textbook formats, including online textbooks that they may read from anywhere. This study looks into the style and arrangement of learning textbooks in Malaysia in order to make studying more convenient. The purpose of this research is to see if the dynamics of textbook layout affect students' desire to learn. Thirty Year 6 children from a primary school in the Selangor district of Hulu Langat participated in this study. Students' views of textbook design elements, such as paper quality, printing, colour, and pedagogical aspects, were determined using a quantitative survey. Print and colour were scored higher by the students than paper quality, artwork, and images, according to the data. Furthermore, the research discovered a link between the layout of a book and its actual use.

use of eye-tracking in science textbook analysis: a literature review

Contemporarily available technology has provided researchers quite an accessible method to see through students’ eyes. This offers researchers the chance to re-evaluate teaching materials from their, so far hidden, potential function’s point-of view. In this study, a literature review of research on science textbooks using the eye-tracking method is presented. Relevant journal articles or conference papers indexed on the Web of Science and Scopus databases were selected. From the original 112 papers, 18 were submitted to a thorough analysis after duplicate papers and papers not conforming to the topic were excluded. The studies’ characteristics, topics (influence of textbook design on student learning, distribution of attention, textbook effect etc.) and used methods (the device and measurement, additional methods, methodological issues) are included in the review. (Novice) science education researchers, state officers responsible for textbook evaluation, textbook authors or even teachers can profit from this overview, which clearly shows the state of the art as well as potential research directions.

La rappresentazione delle diversità nei materiali glottodidattici Un’indagine comparativa sui manuali di inglese americano e d’italiano per stranieri

This chapter presents the results of a research study on the photographs used in a sample of foreign language coursebooks (FLC). The study aimed to determine to what extent the pictures are representative of the different types of diversity that constitute our societies. A corpus of 699 pictures taken from a selection of FLC of English and Italian was created. On the whole, the analysis showed that, while cultural diversity is widely present in the FLC, other types of diversity, such as disability or the LGBT community, are mostly neglected. The results of the study are relevant for researchers and publishers interested in inclusive textbook design, as it highlights the relevance of pictures in FLC not only as an aesthetic and pedagogical support, but also as visual representations of diversity as a value in our society.

Typical errors in presenting concepts in textbooks for the first four grades of primary school

This paper offers a systematization of typical errors in presenting scientific concepts in textbooks for the first four grades of primary school. The subject of our analysis and systematization were presentations of concepts which deviate from or violate the internal cognitive and logical nature of a scientific concept, thus representing a source of potential difficulties for students in understanding scientific knowledge. Starting from Vygotsky's theory of the development of scientific concepts, as well as the general standards of textbook quality and a review of studies analyzing textbooks in this field, we have made a systematization of typical errors in the presentation of scientific terms. Five typical errors are explained and elucidated: a simple description of a phenomenon or the statement of its function, use or usefulness; a simple establishment of connections between a concept (word) and an object (image); offering ready-made phrases and scientific statements without relating them to a system of concepts; providing only typical examples or providing examples that lack variety, and presenting important and unimportant facts on the same level, without pointing out the differences. Every typical error is explained using examples from textbooks in which scientific concepts relevant to grades 1-4 are introduced (settlement, village, city, plants, relief, historical figure and birds). In the absence of scientific principles in presenting concepts in textbooks, their authors rely on implicit assumptions about concepts as phenomenal or factual kinds of knowledge. Due to the importance of acquiring scientific concepts for the cognitive development of the individual, the practical implications of the findings are that in textbook design but also in teacher education particular attention must be devoted to the area of teaching and learning scientific concepts.

Lexical Coverage and Readability of Science Textbooks for English-Medium Instruction Secondary Schools in Hong Kong

Textbooks are an important source of knowledge input on which the transmission of academic knowledge often relies, especially in the early stages of academic learning. Adopting a corpus-based approach, this study evaluates the text difficulty of science textbooks used in secondary English-medium instruction schools in Hong Kong, with a focus on their lexical coverage and readability. It compares the English language used in English-medium science textbooks with that in English as a foreign language textbooks. The analysis reveals that the text difficulty of the English-medium science textbooks is inappropriate in terms of the coverage of academic words and the readability level. The results also show that the coverage of words from the Academic Word List (AWL) and the General Service List (GSL) as well as the text readability levels, vary across scientific topics. These findings will inform textbook design and the development of pedagogical strategies to facilitate students’ learning of subject content in the medium of English.