Uppsatsens syfte är att undersöka den syn på kunskap som förmedlas i läroböcker samt att diskutera denna syn utifrån hur lärare ser på sin användning av läromedel. Studien görs som en jämförande kvalitativ undersökning av sex läroböcker från två skilda tidsperioder, sekelskiftet 1900 samt sekelskiftet 2000. Den utgår från frågeställningar som om läroböckernas övergripande syfte skiljer sig mellan böckerna, vilken betydelse läroboken har för lärarnas arbete och om det går att se någon övergripande förändring i attityd till läroböcker. Med dessa frågeställningar som utgångspunkt genomförs en textanalys samt en enkätstudie. I textanalysen undersöks och diskuteras både tilltal och beskrivningar, innehåll och teman samt värderingar och attityder. Enkätstudien fokuserar på lärares användning av läroböcker och läromedel samt deras attityder gentemot det material som finns tillgängligt för undervisningen. Dessa båda delar diskuteras sedan utifrån ett kunskapsteoretiskt perspektiv. Bland annat diskuteras det urval av stoff som måste göras vid författandet och vem som bestämmer vad som är viktigt, vilken vikt kompletterande material ska ha i undervisningen samt om de krav på reflektion och kritiskt tänkande som vårt samhälle ställer behandlas korrekt. Slutsatser som kan dras av undersökningen är bland annat att diskussionen kring kunskapsbegreppet i läroböcker kan göras ur många perspektiv men att det är tydligt att en förändring har skett inom kunskapsförmedlingen, från encyklopedisk kunskap till en som kräver förståelse och reflektion.

This paper investigates how Latin America and its cultures are represented in textbooks on Spanish as a foreign language. The study aims at investigating how much attention and of what type is dedicated to Latin America in the investigated material, whether the textbooks contribute to giving a varied and nuanced image of the Spanish-American cultures and how this relates to the educational goal of promoting an intercultural competence.A qualitative method of analysis has been applied in order to carry out the analysis of three textbooks for intermediate levels of language studies: Caminando 3, Alegria and De acuerdo.The results of the investigation show that the investigated textbooks mostly present a simplified, ethnocentric, homogenized and sometimes postcolonial image of the Spanish-American cultures. Texts where the culture constitutes the context and not the subject can promote a process of identification and consequently an intercultural competence.The study’s main conclusions show that Spanish-American cultures are underrepresented in the investigated material and that a non-native perspective dominates in the majority of the texts. This combined with the lack of variety and profundity, may have consequences for the promotion of an intercultural competence and for teachers’ work with textbooks and cultural content.

The purposes of this study were to understand the opinions of English teachers in junior high school in Kaohsiung City on the selection criteria and the influence factors for English textbooks, and to offer a few concrete suggestions for the improvement of junior high schools textbook selection according to the results. The research adopted questionnaire survey method. The questionnaire was designed and distributed to 400 English teachers from 45 junior high schools in Kaohsiung City as the subjects. As a result, 305 were valid responded corresponding with a 76% of return rate. Descriptive statistics, t-test, one-way ANOVA, and Scheffe method were conducted for data analysis and finally come to the following results: 1. The teachers generally agree to the importance of the textbook selection criteria, in which they emphasize the most on ¡§context-related properties,¡¨ and the less on ¡§physical properties.¡¨ 2. On the whole, the teachers agree to the influence factors on textbook selection, and the ¡§internal factors¡¨ have more influence than the ¡§external factors.¡¨ 3. English teachers are the main participants in selecting English textbooks in junior high school, and the final results are determined in the meeting of textbook selection. 4. There are significant different opinions on the importance of the textbook selection criteria due to the ¡§school sizes,¡¨ ¡§genders,¡¨ ¡§years of teaching experience,¡¨ and the ¡§experiences of textbook selection.¡¨ 5. There are significant different opinions on the influence factors on textbook selection because of the ¡§locations of school,¡¨ ¡§educational qualifications,¡¨ ¡§years of teaching experience,¡¨ and the ¡§experiences of textbook selection.¡¨ Based on the results of the study, some suggestions are proposed to the educational authorities, schools, teachers and publishers, as well as future studies.

ABSTRACT AN EVALUATION OF TIME FOR ENGLISH 4, THE 4TH GRADE ENGLISH COURSEBOOK FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS &Ouml / zdemir, Fatma Esra M.A., Department of English Language Teaching Supervisor : Prof. Dr. H&uuml / sn&uuml / Enginarlar September 2007, 119 pages The purpose of this study was to find out the how the fourth grade students in public schools and the fourth grade English teachers evaluated the English coursebook Time for English 4 in terms of purpose, approach, visual design, presentation of vocabulary and language, practice activities and exercises, supporting sources, and supporting materials. To fulfill this aim, a teacher questionnaire, a student questionnaire and a teacher interview was prepared by the researcher. The questionnaires were administered face to face to 102 randomly selected fourth grade students in Beypazari and 15 English teachers in the districts of Altindag, Beypazari, Ke&ccedil / i&ouml / ren, and Mamak. Six of the English teachers were also interviewed in order to obtain qualitative data. The interviews were recorded on a tape recorder and then transcribed. Quantitative data was analyzed by calculating the frequency counts, percentages, arithmetic means, and the standard deviations of the responses given to the questionnaires. Qualitative data obtained from the interviews was analyzed by using content analysis. According to the results of the study, both the teachers and the students were content with the coursebook. The level of satisfaction was higher among the students. Students identified two problems about the instructions and the songs in the coursebook. Teachers identified four more problems about the teacher&rsquo / s book, the number of vocabulary items, the number of units, and the presentation of the language items. Necessary suggestions were made for the solution of the problems to the relevant parties.

The aim of this study was to examine middle school science textbooks according to some criteria in terms of nature of science (NOS). A total of three middle school science textbooks in 6th, 7th and 8th grade and two biology units were analyzed in each textbook. In the 6th grade science textbooks, Reproduction, Development and Growth in Living Beingsand Systems in Our Body units, in the 7th grade science textbook, Systems in Our Body and Human and Environment units, in the 8th grade science textbook, Cell Division and Heredity and Livings and Energy Relationships units were analyzed by using Nature of Science Criteria, adapted from Gunckel&amp / #8217 / s (2004) study. The instrument consists of 3 categories, 9 criteria and 28 indicators. The categories are: Science as Authoritative Knowledge, Science as Understanding Phenomena and Science as the Social Construction of Knowledge. A qualitative oriented approach was performed and content analysis method was used to assess the science textbooks. Data were analyzed by percentage and frequency analysis. Reliability was calculated by Cohen&amp / #8217 / s Kappa and the value 0,71 which was found is reliable. The results of this study revealed that the three science textbooks inadequately presented the nature of science categories. It was also found that the percentages of almost all the indicators were under fifty. The textbooks presented the science as authoritative knowledge category relatively higher than the other two categories. The science as the sociocultural construction of knowledge category was portrayed less than the other two categories.

The purpose of this study was to compare selected sixth, seventh and eighth grades mathematics textbooks from Turkey, Singapore and the United States of America and explore their implications for presenting same opportunity to learn to the students at the same grade level. In this study, the selected books were analyzed in terms of whether they included perimeter, area and volume topics, how they presented the topics on the basis of the selected features and the complexity of to-be-solved mathematical problems related to the topics. Some similarities and differences were observed among the textbooks. It was found that the Turkish textbooks are inclusive in terms of subtopics related to perimeter, area and volume. However, the number of pages dedicated to present the topics is the highest in the Singaporean textbooks. That is, in comparison to the Turkish textbooks, the Singaporean textbooks include fewer number of subtopics related to perimeter, area and volume, but the subtopics are presented in a more detail manner. These books are also rich in terms of mathematically relevant illustrations that make the topics more understandable for students. While the U.S textbooks benefit heavily from technology to present the topics, especially by using three-dimensional shapes / the Turkish and Singaporean textbooks do not make use of technology. The textbooks do not show a difference in terms of complexity of to-be-solved problems. Since all of them mostly include the problems with moderate complexity. Despite there is not any difference among the textbooks in terms of the complexity of to-be-solved problems, there is a difference in terms of the number of to-be-solved problems in the textbooks. The Singaporean textbooks encompass more to-be-solved problems compared to others. The study was concluded by providing some useful suggestions to cover the perimeter, area and volume topics in a way that makes students&rsquo / learning easier and to present same opportunity to learn to the students.

The period from 1930 to 1946 constitutes one of the most important episodes of the history of Turkish Republic. It is the period in which the new regime was consolidated through a series of radical secularizing reforms, which aimed at weakening the role of religion in politics and society and confining it to the private sphere. In this period, the Kemalist regime tried to replace an identity based on religion by one based on the Turkish nation. It has generally been argued that the transition to multi-party regime and the subsequent coming to power of the Democratic Party in 1950 constitutes a serious break with the previous period by opening a greater space for religion in society. This thesis will try to study the construction of Turkish national identity through a comparison of the high school textbooks of the 1930 &ndash / 1950 period and 1950 &ndash / 1960 era.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the cultural load of the reading texts of the Spot On 8 ELT textbook published in Turkey, and to find out the teachers&rsquo / and students&rsquo / perceptions concerning the presence of native, target and other world cultures (C1, C2 and C3 respectively) in ELT textbooks. In order to fulfill these aims, a checklist, a teacher questionnaire, a student questionnaire, a teacher interview were developed by the researcher. Moreover, the impressionistic overview and the item frequency procedure were applied for the analysis of cultural content of the textbook. Quantitative data were analyzed by calculating the frequencies, percentages, and the Chronbach alpha. Qualitative data were analyzed by applying the coding system for the categorization of collected responses and content analysis. The results showed that the cultural load of the textbook was insufficient and that the percentage of cultural elements in the reading passages is significantly low. The teachers&rsquo / satisfaction with the textbook appeared to be relatively low and students showed neither high level of satisfaction with their textbook nor dissatisfaction with it. Overall, there is a serious mismatch between teachers&rsquo / and students&rsquo / perceptions of culture and the real cultural load of the textbook. The target culture prevails in the reading texts although teachers considered native and other world cultures to be important as well, and students showed equally low interest in target and other world cultures giving the preference dominantly to their native culture.

Abstract The main purpose of this study is to investigate, through the ¡§Series¡¨ unit in the first volume of high school mathematics, the impact of the updated-version textbooks on the learning effectiveness of students so as to provide references to be used by future revisers of teaching materials. The research subjects were drawn from Kaohsiung City high schools. Three schools were selected (two public and one private). These three high schools, from the 1999 academic year, began to use mathematics textbooks of three different versions, one to each school. A first-year class and a second-year class were drawn from each school, and there were six classes in total. In total there were 237 students receiving the experimentation. The students from the same school, no matter they were first-year or second-year, had been taught by the same teacher in respect of the unit that was included in the study. Among the three schools, School ¥Ò®Õ admitted for the 1998 and 1999 school years new students with scores higher than 580 on the joint entrance examination, School ¤A®Õadmitted for the 1998 and 1999 school years new students with scores from 530 to 580 on the joint entrance examination, and School ¤þ®Õadmitted for the 1998 and 1999 school years new students with scores lower than 530 on the joint entrance examination. The three new versions used in the study were published by Nan-I Book Store, Ta Tung Information Enterprise, Co., Ltd., and Han Lin Publisher respectively. They are high school mathematics textbooks examined and approved by the Ministry of Education (excluding Teacher¡¦s Manual, supplementary materials, journals, reference books, etc). The outdated version was published by National Bureau of Editing and Translation. Mathematics Test written by the researcher was used as the testing tool, and the t-test method was adopted. Moreover, because the variances of the file data collected from a school fluctuated tremendously and the sample space was unequal, a single-factor ANOVA analysis was conducted to indicate whether there existed a significant difference between classes in terms of their learning achievement. The ¡§Questionnaire on Mathematics Opinions¡¨ was administered and the results were represented by ¡¥5¡¦, ¡¥4¡¦, ¡¥3¡¦, ¡¥2¡¦, ¡¥1¡¦, which indicated their scores. An ANOVA analysis was conducted to investigate the differences in students¡¦ learning attitude. After synthesizing the analytical results of this study, the author has come up with the following conclusions: ¤@¡BIt is known from t-test and ANOVA analysis: in School ¥Ò®Õ, there existed a significant difference between the first-year and the second-year students in respect of their learning effectiveness; in School ¤A®Õ, there existed no significant difference between the first-year and the second-year students in respect of their learning effectiveness; in School ¤þ®Õ, there existed no significant difference between the first-year and the second-year students in respect of their learning effectiveness. ¤G¡BAccording to the correct percentage of each question made by students and the error pattern, the test questions were classified into three types: concept, calculation, and comprehensive application (including questions that integrated comprehension, analysis, and application abilities). It was found from the classification of questions that: (1) Textbooks have no impact on both the well-established (School ¥Ò®Õ) and the weak (School ¤þ®Õ) students in respect of the effectiveness of learning concept questions. There is no difference between the outdated and the updated-version textbooks. However, as far as the students with ordinary achievement (School ¤A®Õ) are concerned, the updated-version textbooks have a significant impact on learning effectiveness. (2) Textbooks have an impact on both the well-established (School ¥Ò®Õ) and the weak (School¤þ®Õ) students in respect of the effectiveness of learning calculation questions, and the first-year students have benefited more from the updated-version textbooks than have their second-year counterparts in terms of the effectiveness in learning calculation questions. However, as far as the students with ordinary achievement (School ¤A®Õ) are concerned, the updated-version textbooks have a significant impact on the effectiveness of their learning to reduce cycle fractions, but have no significant impact on their learning other calculation questions. (3) Textbooks have an impact on the effectiveness of learning comprehensive application questions, as far as both the well-established (School¥Ò®Õ ) and the students with ordinary achievement (School¤A®Õ) are concerned. Moreover, the first-year students have benefited less from the updated-version textbooks than have their second-year counterparts in terms of the effectiveness in learning comprehensive application questions. However, as far as the weak students (School¤þ®Õ) are concerned, the updated-version textbooks have a significant impact on the effectiveness of their learning comprehensive application questions. In particular, the updated-version textbooks have an especially significant impact on the effectiveness in learning the comprehensive application questions of regression principle. ¤T¡BFrom investigating the difference between attitude toward and effectiveness in learning mathematics as far as different groups are concerned, it has been found: There existed a significant difference between learning attitude and learning effectiveness as far as the first-year and the second-year students of School ¥Ò®Õ are concerned. There existed no significant difference between learning attitude and learning effectiveness as far as the first-year students of School ¤A®Õare concerned. There existed a significant difference between learning attitude and learning effectiveness as far as the second-year students of School ¤þ®Õ are concerned. There existed no significant difference between learning attitude and learning effectiveness as far as the first-year and the second-year students of School ¤þ®Õ are concerned. ¥|¡BFrom the correlation between the learning attitude (consisting of five sub- categories: learning habit, learning process, learning desire, learning method, and test preparation) and the learning effectiveness of the first-year and second-year students of the three schools, it has been found: ¡]1¡^ As far as the correlations between their learning effectiveness and their learning desire and between their learning effectiveness and their learning method are concerned, there existed a significant difference between the first-year and the second-year students. Because both learning desire and learning method are related to textbooks, the updated-version textbooks had a significant impact on the learning effectiveness of the first-year students of School ¥Ò®Õ. ¡]2¡^ On the average, there existed a significant correlation between the learning effectiveness of the second-year students of School¥Ò®Õ , School ¤A®Õ, and School ¤þ®Õ and each of the five sub-categories of learning attitude (learning habit, learning process, learning desire, learning method, test preparation). Their performance on each sub-category of learning attitude is more or less related to textbooks. Therefore, there existed a significant correlation between the updated-version textbooks and each of the five sub-categories of learning attitude. ¡]1¡^ The correlation between learning effectiveness and learning method presented by the first-year students of School ¥Ò®Õ and School ¤þ®Õ (especially School ¥Ò®Õ) is more significant than that presented by their second-year counterparts. ¡]4¡^ The correlation between learning effectiveness and test preparation presented by the first-year students of School ¥Ò®Õ, School ¤A®Õand School ¤þ®Õ is more significant than that presented by their second-year counterparts.

<p>Läraren står inför ett stort utbud och stora möjligheter till variation i användningen av läromedel idag. Vilka läromedel som väljs i undervisningen beror på olika ramfaktorer såsom elevgruppen, deras prestationsförmåga, intresse, motivation, tid och skolans ekonomiska resurser.</p><p>I vår studie presenteras hur en lärare och hennes fem elever upplever engelskundervisning och vilka deras åsikter är kring läromedlen. Studiens utgångspunkt är en kvalitativ undersökning baserad på intervjuer med denna lärare och dessa elever.</p><p>Vårt syfte är att belysa hur elever och lärare upplever undervisning i engelska i årskurs 9 med fokus på val, användning och utvärdering av läromedel.</p><p>Resultatet visar att eleverna efterfrågar mer muntlig engelska under lektionstiden, vilket inte tycks tillgodoses med de läromedel som används. Eleverna har trots detta en positiv inställning till de läromedel som används samt till engelskundervisning och de ser fördelar med färdigheter i ämnet. Betydelsen av engelska språket för kommunikation med omvärlden anses viktig. Även betydelsen av IKT som läromedel i undervisningen visade sig vara stor för eleverna även om användningen av densamma var begränsad. Att knyta undervisningen till elevernas erfarenhetsvärld visade sig vara mycket väsentligt för elevernas motivation att lära. Läraren underströk betydelsen av diverse faktorer som har en betydelsefull roll i valet av läromedel samt i planering och utformning av engelskundervisning i form av elevernas olika behov, deras förmåga till ansvarstagande och mognadsgrad samt ekonomiska resurser och tid.</p><p>Väl strukturerad undervisning visade sig vara uppskattad av både lärare och elever då detta tydliggör undervisningen i stora klasser med diverse problem. En strukturerad läroboksundervisning förenklar dessutom för läraren att följa kursplanen. Vad gäller elevers delaktighet i val, användning och utvärdering av läromedel visade sig denna delaktighet vara liten. Eleverna ansåg att läraren med sin kompetens var bättre rustad att bestämma om undervisningen och de sade sig ha fullt upp med alla andra krav som ställs på dem i skolan.</p> / <p>The teacher today is offered a great choice of teaching material that can contribute to variation in teaching. The choice of teaching material depends on various elements such as: student group, their performance, interest, motivation, time, and economic means of the school. Our study presents one teacher and her five students´ experiences of their English teaching and their view on teaching material. Qualitative research method based upon interviews with one teacher and her five students was used in the study. Our aim is to illustrate the five students´ and one teacher´s experience of the English teaching in the 9 and evaluation of teaching material.</p><p>The result of the study shows that students strive for more spoken English during their lessons but it seems that teaching materials do not provide for it. In spite of that students have a positive attitude towards the teaching materials used for their English studies and they are aware of advantages with proficiency in this subject. The importance of the English language for global communication points out. The students emphasise the importance of IKT as a teaching material for their education but they argue that its use is limited. The teacher emphasizes the importance of various elements and their influence on choice, planning and structure of the English teaching. These elements are: students´ different needs, their ability to take responsibility, their maturity, economic means and time. Well structured way of English teaching is appreciated by both teacher and the students since it clarifies teaching in the whole class. Apart from that well-structured teaching based upon the textbook it simplifies for the teacher to follow the curriculum. Concerning students´ participation in choice, use and evaluation of the teaching materials the study shows that their participation was little. Students considered that the teacher with her qualifications and expertise is the one who should decide about teaching and that in school there is already a great deal of demand on them.</p><p> </p>