No description available.

This study provides a rationale for adopting course materials. It demonstrates the relationship between ability to read assigned materials and academic achievement, and that selection of materials creates two groups having different probabilities of success. The sample was selected from a population of all students enrolled in Principles of Economics courses at North Texas State University in the spring semester of 1986. The Nelson-Denny Reading Test was used to determine reading ability. Assigned materials were analyzed for readability. A frustration level was determined and used to divide the sample: the group of interest, those with reading abilities below the frustration level who underwent the treatment of reading materials written above their ability to comprehend; and the comparison group, those with reading abilities above the frustration level who did not undergo the treatment.

The aim of this study is to investigate which text genres are included in three textbooks intended for the course English 5, and how they are represented. This is done in order to discuss the functions that the textbooks Blueprint A, Solid Gold and Engelska 5 & 6: Outlooks on, can have in the English classroom. The investigation is conducted through a textbook analysis that includes both a quantitative content analysis to create an overview of the text genres, and a close reading text analysis that investigates the representation of the texts with the help of Bloom’s Taxonomy. The investigation finds that all three books contain several different text genres and that they use some of the text genres more frequently than the other books do. This means that the three books have different texts in focus. Since the study also shows that the texts are represented in many different ways, the study concludes that the books can have many different functions, specific for each book and therefore it can be important to evaluate textbooks before using them and to use more than one. However, one major factor that all these three books can help teachers with is to introduce pupils to many different text genres and improve learning by including most of the perspectives introduced by Bloom as important levels of learning.

Zimbabwe is a country in southern Africa that was formerly known as Rhodesia and was established in 1890 by European settlers. Zimbabwe gained independence from the colonial regime in 1980 and has a rich historical background. This study serves to understand the use of archaeology in two selected Form 3 Zimbabwean history textbooks. The study was a case study with embedded units of analysis situated in the interpretivist paradigm analysing how and why archaeology had been used in Zimbabwean school history textbooks. Content analysis of each unit was employed to better understand this concept and the transdisciplinary relationship between historians and archaeologists is conceptualized in the textbooks. What emerged from the analysis was that archaeology was indeed made use of to explain the prehistory of Zimbabwe, it was just the depth of the archaeological content that differed between the two textbooks sampled. Archaeology was used in a nationalistic manner to show that prior to the arrival of Europeans, Zimbabwe did indeed have a thriving culture with city states, craftsmen and international trade contrary to the Eurocentric views that native Zimbabweans were primitive. In this study, it was shown that without archaeology the prehistory of Zimbabwe would remain fragmented and mixed up in romanticised versions of Great Zimbabwe being built by the Queen of Sheba or being connected to the mines of King Solomon and never really giving credit to the native inhabitants of Zimbabwe who were the true architects of a nation as great as that of Great Zimbabwe. In the light of the recent political transformations in Zimbabwe, it was however evident that the history textbooks have changed, relying less on archaeology and more on a patriotic form of history filled with oral traditions and earlier historical writings of the Arabs and Portuguese traders and explorers of old. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Humanities Education / MEd / Unrestricted

Diploma thesis Image of the Macedonian identity in the Macedonian history textbooks for primary schools brings an analysis of the history textbooks from the period since 80's till nowadays. The core of the text is analysis and previous chapters inform reader about the historiography in Republic of Macedonia, its relation to the state policy, other chapters speak about Macedonian identity and about the creation process of Macedonian textbooks and their importance for the process of building national identity. The analysis showed that the story of national history in textbooks have changed after the breakup of Yugoslavia. Brotherhood and unity of Yugoslavian nations disappeared together with dissolution of federation. After proclamation of independence of the new formed Republic of Macedonia historiography of the country have turned towards the antic history of Macedonia. Macedonians highly stress the difference between two antic nations - Macedonians and Greeks. The attitude to the Serbian nation changed as well and they are now evaluated the same foes of Macedonian nation as well as Bulgarians and Greeks. There is a tendency in the textbooks to make national heroes from several historical figures. School materials also tend to depict the Macedonian nation as a victim of neighboring nations and...

This independent degree project investigates the vocabulary profiles in English language learning textbooks used in Sweden, and whether the vocabulary profiles follow the expected levels according to the CEFR and The Swedish National Agency for Education. This was done by a corpus-driven method, as well as a lexical analysis using search tools such as the English Vocabulary Profile, Text Inspector, and Compleat Lexical Tutor. The corpus contained texts from six different textbooks used in year 6, year 9, and in the English 7 course, as well as a number of news articles from The Guardian. The news articles served the purpose of comparing the vocabulary levels in the textbooks for English 7 with the vocabulary levels in advanced written English, which is a requirement for students to be able to understand in order to reach the grade E in English 7. The lexical analysis focused on lexical diversity, word families, word frequency, and the CEFR levels. The results showed that the vocabulary levels in the textbooks were appropriate, but that they might not provide enough challenge for students aiming for the higher grades. Results also showed that the vocabulary levels advanced in relation with the school years. The analysis revealed that between 90 and 97 percent of the vocabulary in the texts were categorized as within the CEFR levels that were expected of each of the school years. Pedagogical implictions drawn from this investigation are that teachers should teach about word families and that they can benefit from using the EVP when providing educational material in addition to textbooks.

The diploma thesis, entitled "The rule of the Jagiellonian dynasty on the Czech territory as documented in 1918-1938 textbooks", observes the transformation of a historical fact regarding data concerning the period of the reign of the Jagellonian dynasty, as stated in Czech and Polish textbooks dating back to 1918-1938. The national and socio-political point of the emergence of both countries after 1918 is the basis for the observation and comparison of the presented historiographical content. The thesis focuses on the difference of the presentation of the historical content, as well as on the influence of a particular political period on the text editing of the content in history textbooks. The thesis begins with an introduction to the Jagellonian period. This is followed by a comparison of historical contents in Polish and Czechoslovakian history textbooks. Finally, this work also shows the effect of political situations on the transformation of historiography and the narrative of content regarding the Jagellonian period in history textbooks. Keywords: History textbooks, narrative, comparison, historiography,transformation.

This diploma thesis deals with the graphic processing of the chapter Birds (Aves) in natural science textbooks for teaching at elementary school or lower grammar school with a focus on the model species (hereinafter referred to as MS) used for the chapter. The focus on MS stems from the fact that the authors choose different taxa representatives from the taxon, they are not uniformly displayed or described. The theoretical part of the DT deals with the definition of a textbook and the possibilities of its analysis. In particular, research is described here, which focuses on the importance of graphic information in textbooks and misconceptions in pupils for the taxon birds. In the second part of the chapter I deal with the characteristics of the bird taxon. In the practical part of DT, my first goal is to map and analyze graphic information and its processing for the taxon birds (Aves) in natural science textbooks for primary and lower grammar school. The analysis involves the comparison of specific textbooks, the ways in which they are displayed, the ways of describing them in the text and other characteristics that relate to all general pictures that show important features of the group. Another aim of this part of DT is to describe and evaluate the MS for the bird tax (Aves), which would be...

Traditionellt sett har den tryckta läroboken varit en stor del i matematikundervisningen. I takt med samhällets digitalisering har även digitala läroböcker blivit en del av matematikundervisningen. Syftet med studien är därför att ta reda på huruvida digitala läroböcker främjar eller hindrar elevers lärande. Syftet är också att ta reda på hur olika varianter av digitala läroböcker kan användas i undervisningen. Studien baseras på en systematisk litteraturstudie där tidigare forskning om ämnet undersökts. Resultatet visar i huvudsak på att digitala läroböcker främjar elevernas lärande. Digitala läroböcker finns i tre varianter; minimal variant, exklusiv variant och hybridvariant. Resultatet visar också att en exklusiv variant av digitala läroböcker är mest främjande för elevers lärande i matematik. En slutsats är att det behöver forskas mer inom området, framförallt på digitala läroböcker på svenska, eftersom det finns ett begränsat antal studier i ämnet. / The printed textbook has traditionally been a big part of the education in mathematics. While the digitalization in society has increased, the digital textbooks has also become a part of the education. The purpose of the study was to find out how digital textbooks could be a support or a holdback in student learning. The purpose of the study was also to find out how different types of digital textbooks can be used in education. The study is a systematic literature review where previous research about the subject has been analyzed. The main results indicate that the digital textbooks could be a support in student learning. There are three different types of digital textbooks; minimal, exclusive and hybrid. The results also indicate that the exclusive type of digital textbooks is the most supportive in student learning in mathematics. One conclusion is that it needs more research about this subject, especially about digital textbooks in the Swedish language because there’s limited number of studies in the subject.

In the following essay, a study on three textbooks used for educating pupils in Swedish secondary schools in the subject of English is presented. One aim of the study was to investigate how the selection of texts, both fiction and non-fiction, used for reading and listening comprehension purposes and their respective author representations in three Swedish EFL-textbooks could be considered to represent a broad perspective of the English-speaking world. The categories used to find evidence are based on Kachru’s model of Three Circles of English. Furthermore, an additional aim was to uncover evidence of invisibility- and imbalance and selectivity-biases within each textbook’s content. These biases are originally part of the Sadker et al. framework Seven Forms of Bias. The study results indicate that even though all textbooks provide some examples of the English-language from a global perspective, none manage to present a fully balanced and indiscriminate picture of such. Furthermore, the findings suggest that none of the textbooks succeed in providing learners with an evenly distributed array of texts transpiring in, and authors originating from, countries belonging to Kachru’s inner-, as -and- and expanding circle. Instead, it was found that a majority of texts transpire in, and authors originate from, countries within the inner-circle, which further seem to reinforce the perception of a standard English springing from what is by Kachru referred to as the inner, norm-providing circle. Therefore, based on the findings in this study, it is suggested that further research be carried out. In particular, a more substantial number of textbooks should be analysed in order to ensure that the content of EFL-textbooks used in the Swedish educational system agrees with the standards of the core curriculum for English 5.