A large body of research has drawn attention to the importance of providing engaging learning experiences in junior secondary science classes, in an attempt to attract more students into post-compulsory science courses. The reality of time and resource constraints, and the high proportion of non-specialist science teachers teaching science, has…

Over the past 50 years, substantial changes have occurred in the texts used for beginning reading instruction. This article analyzes four perspectives that have most influenced these texts in the United States over this period and the changes in these texts in relation to those in the nation's demographics and young children's literacy-related…

This research is an exploratory study that investigates students' perceptions pertinent to textbook layout and organization and their evaluation of the textbook ease of learning. The objective is to find out whether the layout dynamics of school textbooks make any difference in students' interest in studying or subject understanding. 73 students…

Selecting appropriate texts for L2 (second/foreign language) learners is an important approach to enhancing motivation and, by extension, learning. There is currently no tool for classifying foreign language texts according to a language proficiency framework, which makes it difficult for students and educators to determine the precise…

It has been 12 years since the last objective analysis of brief introductory psychology textbooks was published and 13 years since the textbook copyright period used in that study, 1997-2000. Given the importance of informed textbook evaluation and selection to the introductory course but the difficulty of this task because of the large number of…

This article details the results of a survey project that seeks to understand the factors that influence teachers' decisions about instructional texts in the English classroom. The survey, delivered to 339 teachers in a western state where the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) have been adopted, asked teachers to identify influential factors…

This study is designed to explore the process by which faculty members select the educational materials that they employ in their courses. The most common of these is the required textbook--faculty members typically select one or more books that all students are required to use through the duration of the course. Faculty also employ a wide range…

In this study, we analyzed and compared reasoning and proving opportunities in geometry lessons from American standard-based textbooks and Korean textbooks to understand how these textbooks provide student opportunities to engage in reasoning and proving activities. Overall, around 40% of exercise problems in Core Plus Mathematics Project (CPMP)…

This study is one of a series using consistent definitions of key concepts to support analysis of changes over time. The studies are designed to explore the process by which faculty members select and use the educational materials that they employ in their courses. The most common of these is the required textbook: faculty members typically select…

Textbooks have a great importance in instructing and sharing experiences by the use of theoretical information. This study aims to present views of instructors regarding the selection and use of textbooks in Turkish education departments. For that purpose, the participants in this survey were composed of 15 instructors officiating in the Turkish…

This paper analyses the process of production and regulation of school textbooks in Poland under communist rule. The stages of textbook approval were as follows: selection of authors; editorial work at the publishing house; discussions in the commissions of the Ministry of Education; decisions of the censorship office. It is argued that the Polish…

The factors involved in the selection of accounting textbooks are under-investigated, and most of the research is survey-based, largely ignoring the information that could be analyzed by direct inspection of textbook content and its impact on textbook selection. In this study the authors fill this lacuna by deploying content analysis of the…

This case study developed a collaborative approach to the selection of a Spanish language textbook. The collaborative process consisted of six steps, detailed in this article: team building, generating evaluation criteria, formulating a meaningful rubric, selecting prospective textbooks, calculating rubric results, and reflectively reviewing…

The Kansas State University Open/Alternative Textbook Initiative provides grants to faculty members to replace textbooks with open/alternative educational resources (OAERs) that are available at no cost to students. Open educational resources are available for anyone to access, while alternative educational resources are not open. The objective of…

Improving the school governance structure and establishing a modern school system are the current research focuses in elementary and middle school management. Through a comparative analysis of the school governance structure of four provinces and cities in China (Beijing-Shanghai-Jiangsu-Guangdong, BSJG) and PISA2015 high-scored…