This study addresses a significant gap in educational research by employing statistical methods to measure the sequencing of different components and content topics in textbooks. It is well-documented that the structure and sequencing features of textbooks play a crucial role in enhancing students' learning. However, existing literature has…

Learning involves complex cognitive processes such as perception, attention, and memory, with reading being a common method to acquire knowledge. Textbooks are often supplemented with additional materials such as self-test questions and demonstration tasks to enhance learning. However, the impact of these supplemental materials, especially when…

In a time of rapid change and uncertainty, the skills that students must acquire are becoming more focused on creativity. Correspondingly, the development of students' creative competency should be addressed and implemented in curriculum. The purpose of the study is to examine how the content of a curriculum material, specifically an elementary…

The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate linguistic variation within ESL/EFL reading textbooks and between EAP reading textbooks and lower-division university textbooks. Specifically, within ESL/EFL reading textbooks, lexical, lexico-grammatical, and formulaic variation was measured within series of textbooks, across textbooks at the…

Currently, the perceived use of critical theoretical frameworks to shape instruction in public K-12 education is undergoing intense scrutiny in popular and political debate. Chief among such frameworks has been Critical Race Theory (CRT), which, at the time of this writing, has been legally banned or restricted in eighteen states -- with similar…

Young adolescents build notions of figures through experiences. When young adolescents begin middle school mathematics, they already have prior assumptions and conceptualizations about shapes (Herbst, Fujita, Halverscheid, & Weiss, 2017). Over years of experiences, interactions, and exposures with a particular concept, these students develop…

End-Of-Chapter (EOC) problems have been part of many physics education studies. Typically, only problems "localized" as relevant to a single chapter were used. This work examines how well this type of problem represents all EOC problems and whether EOC problems found in leading textbooks have changed over the past several decades. To…

In 1997, developmental biologist Michael Richardson compared his research team's embryo photographs to Ernst Haeckel's 1874 embryo drawings and called Haeckel's work "noncredible". "Science" soon published "Haeckel's Embryos: Fraud Rediscovered," and Richardson's comments further reinvigorated criticism of Haeckel by…

Both the purpose and overarching goal of this dissertation can be summarized with this quote by Buckminster Fuller: "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." That is, to enable substantive positive change in mathematics education, this…

The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts (CCSS-ELA) will have a significant impact on what teachers teach and what primary students are supposed to be able to do (Bomer & Maloch, 2011). By the end of fourth grade, reading instruction should be evenly balanced between literary text and informational text (NGA Center and CCSSO,…

The purpose of this study was to investigate how writing in mathematics is treated in one 4th grade National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded mathematics textbook titled "Everyday Mathematics" and one publisher-generated textbook titled "enVision MATH." The developed framework provided categories to support each of the research…

This dissertation critically investigates how Advanced Placement (AP) U.S. History textbooks portray key events in Latino/a history. The investigation is made in light of claims made by the College Board, the ACLU, scholars, and federal and state governments that the Advanced Placement program is the path to educational equity for Latino/a…

This study analyzed treatment of geometric transformations in presently available middle grades (6, 7, 8) student mathematics textbooks. Fourteen textbooks from four widely used textbook series were evaluated: two mainline publisher series, Pearson (Prentice Hall) and Glencoe (Math Connects); one National Science Foundation (NSF) funded curriculum…

This content analysis study examined 99 basal reading narratives from three publishers: Harcourt, SRA-McGraw Hill, and Scott Foresman. The stories were classified according to the ethnicity of the major characters. The observed frequencies were compared to expected frequencies to indicate over representation, adequate representation or under…

This content analysis examined illustrations (n =3,357) in the core lessons of four top-selling publishers' social studies textbooks, grades one through three. The graphical (n =556) and pictorial (n =2801) displays were coded for typology, explanation (labels or captions), referential text connection, location of referential connection, function…