Six Chilean music theory instructors participated in an anonymous survey applied over an online platform between April and October of 2017. These instructors were invited to participate in this study because of their role in teaching music theory at influential institutions, each of which is ranked among the top ten best universities in Chile. The questions included in the survey relate to the terminology used to refer to music elements upon which current American music theory textbooks consistently agree, and that are usually taught during the first two years of undergraduate studies in accredited American music schools: types of cadences, periods, sentences, types of 6/4 chords, augmented sixth chords, tonicization, modulation, binary form, and the exposition of the sonata form. Music theory terminology and its standardization facilitates the communication of the participants of the domain, as well as the transmission of knowledge and practice of the field. This characteristic of music terminology is an essential pedagogical tool for the training of musicians, especially undergraduate students. In order to evaluate and compare the level of standardization of music theory terminology used by Chilean instructors, this research will first assess the level of standardization of seven American music theory textbooks, and one British textbook.

A review of sociological literature reveals a long history of the study of gender, and an increased popularity in the application of feminist theories and ideas to sociological research. As transmitters of the discipline, introductory-level textbooks have been heavily studied over the past quarter-century to assess the accuracy with which they portray the field of sociology. In order to update the literature available on the topic, this study analyzed the current cohort of top-selling, introductory-level sociology textbooks for coverage of feminist theory and gender issues. Each of the ten textbooks was read cover-to-cover and coded for both latent and manifest data using a coding sheet. The researcher found a notable increase in the incidences of both feminist theories and gender issues within the current cohort of textbooks. The specific treatment of each topic varied widely across books, and within each book the topics were presented one-dimensionally and were ghettoized to feminized chapters. Definitions of feminist theory and feminism within the books primarily described liberal feminism and little else, and discussions of both feminist theory and gender were most heavily featured in the gender and family chapters. Generally, the gender issues present in the textbook sample were mostly to do with women, and erased non-binary experiences of gender. Additionally, an intersectional approach to discussions of gender was applied about one-third of the time. This study concludes that the current textbook cohort is still far from the ideal model, and the feminization and marginalization of these topics is likely due to the textbook production cycle and the specific phenomenon of textual isomorphism.

My dissertation examined the transformation of reading practices and ideas about the functions of alphabetic literacy in nineteenth-century Lima. Scholars of Latin America have attributed improvements in literacy rates to the rise of the Teaching State in the twentieth century; however, as I showed, literacy and reading culture spread decades earlier in the Peruvian capital, at a time when the state lacked the stability and resources to develop a public system of education. “Reading Spaces” argued that during the second half of the nineteenth century, private educational enterprise from a diverse group of booksellers, writers, and educators established key institutions of the modern Teaching State, including a national textbook industry as well as pedagogical newspapers, associations, and conferences. They did so in a process that promoted new pedagogical methods and helped spread alphabetic literacy and reading practices. Developments in the disciplines of book history, the cultural history of education, and the history of reading informed my methodological approach to a variety of previously unexamined sources including books, textbooks, pedagogical periodicals, as well as bookstore organ newspapers and catalogues. Both the intellectual content and paratext of published sources provided a wealth of information regarding the circulation of the texts, their reception among state authorities and influential members of Lima’s society, and the relationship of book and textbook authors to their publishers and readers. My dissertation revealed that textbook standardization and the proliferation of pedagogical newspapers were processes firmly rooted in the development of Peru’s private educational enterprise, publishing industry and educational legislation of the nineteenth century. These processes expanded Lima’s public sphere, where booksellers, editors, writers, and teachers debated modern pedagogies and promoted broad engagement in educational matters. They conducted pedagogical conferences, intellectual competitions, national expositions and reorganized civic festivities. The presence of a pedagogical public sphere, which directed the course of institutions of the modern nation state in Peru, encourages a reassessment of our traditional narratives of the relationship between education and nation in Latin America and beyond.

The present study is based on the theoretical assumptions that frequency of characters and their structural components, as well as the frequency types of structural components, are important to enable learners of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) to discover the underlying structure of Chinese characters. In the CFL context, since reliable target language input is limited largely to textbook materials and teacher instruction, it is important to more rigorously examine the inventory of Chinese characters that is typically presented in CFL textbooks. The purpose of this study was to systematically describe and classify Chinese characters from ten CFL textbooks designed for college and adult beginning learners. The main focus was to compare the textbooks in the following areas: explicit orthographic decomposition instruction, character frequency selection, radical combination frequency, radical semantic transparency, radical positional regularity among different character graphic structures, phonetic element reliability, and phonetic component combination frequency. To accomplish the analysis required for this study, a special character database was created. Dictionaries were used to classify character characteristics, and documented frequency lists were used to classify the character usage frequency. The findings revealed that most textbooks rarely include explicit orthographic decomposition instruction in the vocabulary lists or lessons, while over 40% of the characters in most of the textbooks did not combine with other characters to form words. In addition, analysis of frequency lists created over time revealed that the ten textbooks generally contain many high frequency characters. Furthermore, the results indicated that 60% of the characters in the database were classified by relatively few radicals (17%), with most radicals appearing on the left side of the characters. Relatively reliable phonetic analogy groups appeared frequently. About half of the characters are semantic-phonetic compound characters. Less than 10% of the characters in the textbooks are semantic-phonetic compound characters that contain semantically transparent radicals and reliable phonetic elements. The results of the study suggest that textbook writers should consider integrating orthographic decomposition and component frequency materials into their textbooks, as systematic instruction in textbooks is generally lacking. Teachers should also be mindful of emphasizing the high frequency characters that are consistently featured in all textbooks, as well as the frequently appearing radicals and left-right internal structure of many of the characters. In this way, students will early on develop a firm foundation of the principles governing Chinese orthography.

This qualitative research study examines the greatest and/or most common problems with the use of textbooks as perceived by teachers in upper secondary school in Sweden. The study employs interviews to gather data and also looks further into the textbooks the interviewed teachers use to gain a greater understanding of the problems presented by the data. The result of the study shows that teacher experience various problems while using textbooks, e.g. insufficient number of some exercises, outdated content, insufficient cultural content and it is also a time-consuming process to adapt the textbook to the curriculum, learner group and learner situation. However, the study also shows that many, if not all, of the problems are not exclusive to the use of textbooks and as such are potential issues regardless of the type of teaching material that is used. Therefore, the problem seems to not be with textbooks themselves but rather a consequence of larger issues within the teaching profession such as time-restrictions, financial issues and problems with the margin of interpretation of the curricula. Further research is required to find a solution as it is clear that for the moment many teachers perceive the textbook partly as a problem. It is thus clear that something needs to change, either how textbooks are defined, the responsibilities of the teachers, and/or the curricula themselves.

I conducted a content analysis to examine the treatment of the surface area and volume concepts within four published middle-grades mathematics textbook series. In particular, I examined the treatment of the surface area and volume concepts in terms of the location of surface area and volume lessons in the textbook and the number of pages and lessons devoted to these concepts. I also investigated the sequence of the instructional blocks of surface area and volume lessons. In addition, I evaluated the tasks included in these lessons in regards to the performance expectations of students, the types of visual representations of 3D objects, and the level of mathematical complexity. At last, I examined the extent to which the content of surface area and volume lessons address the Common Core Content Standards (CCCS) for 6-8 geometry that are aligned with these topics. I used content analysis to analyze relevant content in a total of twelve middle-grades student edition mathematics textbooks from two popular textbook series, Go Math!(GM) and Glencoe Math (GMC); and two alternative textbook series, Connected Mathematics 3 (CM) and University of Chicago School Project (UCSMP). First, I used Flanders’ (1994) counting method to examine the physical characteristics of textbooks, such as the location of the surface area and volume lessons in the textbook, the number of pages and lessons devoted to these concepts. Second, I analyzed the sequence of the instructional blocks of surface area and volume lessons by using content analysis. Third, I adapted the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study [TIMSS] (2002) Performance Expectations for Mathematics Framework to examine the performance expectations of students within tasks. Fourth, I developed and used the Visual Representations of 3D Objects Framework to examine the types of visual representations of 3D objects included in the tasks. Fifth, I employed the Mathematics Framework for the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) to examine the level of mathematical complexity of tasks. Finally, I created the CCCS for 6-8 Geometry Components guideline to examine to what extend the surface area and volume lessons address the geometry content standards. Results indicated that the majority of textbooks place the concepts of surface area and volume towards the end of the textbook. Small percentages of instructional pages and lessons are devoted to these concepts in all textbooks. Findings also revealed great similarities among the instructional blocks of lessons within three textbook series (GM, GMC, and UCSMP). The majority of tasks within all textbook series contain miniscule amounts of important performance expectations such as justifying and proving and visual representations of 3D objects such as nets and pictures. A significant amount of tasks are of moderate complexity across all textbook series. Analysis also showed that the CM textbook series offers the greatest opportunity for students to generate visual representations of 3D objects and contains the largest amount of high complexity tasks. At last, nearly all lessons address the appropriate geometry content standard among all textbook series. Limitations of the study, implications for mathematics education, as well as recommendations for future research are also presented.

The purpose of this evaluation study was to compare students' perceptions of their science classroom environment when using science kits, textbooks or a combination of science kits, textbooks and teacher-created materials. This year-long study involved using a learning environment questionnaire, namely the My Class Inventory (MCI), interviews and observations to assess which of the three treatments leads to a more positive learning environment. Three questions investigated were whether (1) the learning environment can be reliably and validly assessed among Grade 3-5 students in Texas, (2) instruction using textbooks, science kits, or a combination of textbooks and science kits is more effective in terms of changes in student attitudes and learning environment perceptions, and (3) there are associations between student attitudes toward science classes and the classroom environment? Administrators and teachers in Texas are searching for ways to improve the scores received on standardized tests. For more than 40 years, research has shown that positive classroom environments can lead to improvement in achievement. Therefore 1 chose to investigate the above questions using a learning environments framework. This study was conducted in three urban elementary schools in North Texas. There were a total of 588 students in 28 classrooms with 16 different teachers involved in this research. The schools were similar in demographic features such as ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Analyses of data collected with the My Class Inventory (MCI) supported the instrument's factorial validity, internal consistency reliability, and ability to differentiate between the perceptions of students in different classrooms. / Also, simple correlation and multiple regression analyses indicated reasonably strong and positive associations between each classroom environment scale and the students' satisfaction. The Satisfaction scale was used as an outcome variable, following the lead of Majeed, Fraser and Aldridge (2002). Results h m the MCI, interviews and observations indicated that students preferred a more positive classroom environment in terns of Cohesiveness, Competition, and Friction. Importantly, the group of students using science kits experienced greater pretest-posttest changes in satisfaction and classroom cohesiveness than did either the textbook group of the combination group. This study supports previous research that combined qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection. Qualitative methods suggested that students preferred a more hands-on presentation of science lessons rather than a textbook presentation. This was suggested in interviews with students and teachers and by observations of students in their science classes. This research evaluated three educational methods to determine which instructional method would produce a more positive learning environment and student satisfaction. These results suggest that the utilization of science kits achieves this goal as measured by student satisfaction and cohesiveness.

Abstract not available

Doctor of Education / This thesis is situated in the research field of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) in education and within a professional context of multiliteracies for academic purposes. The overall aim of the research is to provide a metafunctional account of multimodal and multisemiotic meaning-making in print and electronic learning materials in first year science at university. The educational motivation for the study is to provide insights for teachers and educational designers to assist them in the development of students’ multiliteracies, particularly in the context of online learning environments. The corpus comprises online and CD-ROM learning resources in biology, physics and chemistry and textbooks in physics and biology, which are typical of those used in undergraduate science courses in Australia. Two underlying themes of the research are to compare the different affordances of textbook and screen formats and the disciplinary variation found in these formats. The two stage research design consisted of a multimodal content analysis, followed by a SF-based multimodal discourse analysis of a selection of the texts. In the page and screen formats of these pedagogical texts, the analyses show that through the mechanisms of intersemiosis, ideationally, language and image are reconstrued as disciplinary knowledge. This knowledge is characterised by a high level of technicality in image and verbiage, by taxonomic relations across semiotic resources and by interdependence among elements in the image, caption, label and main text. Interpersonally, pedagogical roles of reader/learner/viewer/ and writer/teacher/designer are enacted differently to some extent across formats through the different types of activities on the page and screen but the source of authority and truth remains with the teacher/designer, regardless of format. Roles are thus minimally negotiable, despite the claims of interactivity in the screen texts. Textually, the organisation of meaning across text and image in both formats is reflected in the layout, which is determined by the underlying design grid and in the use of graphic design resources of colour, font, salience and juxtaposition. Finally, through the resources of grammatical metaphor and the reconstrual of images as abstract, both forms of semiosis work together to shift meanings from congruence to abstraction, into the specialised realm of science.

This thesis reports on a study which made an analysis of the new Grade 7 social science syllabus textbooks that are currently being implemented in the high schools of Papua New Guinea. Data relating to these textbooks has been gathered from the teachers who are teaching the course and their Regional Secondary Inspectors. The data was basically obtained through postal questionnaires. The basic aim of the study was to find out how the syllabus materials are received and used in the implementation process. The study also attempted to identify the problems and difficulties the teachers encountered and the concerns they had about the new course. The study revealed some interesting results. For example, there are some teachers of social sciences in the high schools who do not have secondary teaching qualifications, the level of English language used, which was one of the major problems identified with the old syllabus, has not been completely overcome, the problems, difficulties and concerns identified by this study differ from school to school and between rural and urban schools. In addition, the study also identified many practical problems, difficulties and concerns which affect the effective and successful implementation of the syllabus. These include the need for additional support such as reference materials both for teachers and students and a need for more short in-service courses to resocialise teachers in order to change their classroom culture and thus facilitate change.