Descriptive Analysis of a Turkish Math Textbook for Future E-book Developments

Author(s):

Baki Cavlazoglu(presenting / submitting)Ali Bicer

Conference:

ECER 2013

Network:

24. Mathematics Education Research

Format:

Paper

Session Information

24 SES 08, Early Years Mathematics and Mathematical Texts

Paper Session

Time:

2013-09-12

09:00-10:30

Room:

D-405

Chair:

Uwe Gellert

Contribution

The new technological developments and applications can make mathematics teaching and learning more understandable and meaningful when used appropriately. Many researchers agree that there are many different ways to integrate technology into mathematics learning and teaching. For instance, textbooks are in a transition process from hard copy to interactive electronic book (e-book). In this sense, e-books have great potential on students’ mathematical understanding and cognition if they are designed appropriately.

Studies reported that mostly teachers’ preference is highly visualized-content books (Freitas, 2007) rather than traditional formatted textbooks. Research indicates that textbooks have an important role in implementation of curriculum and instruction because teachers mostly arrange their classroom contents and activities by following the textbooks (Thomson & Fleming, 2004). In this sense, textbook analysis is indispensable because it allows seeing the insight of teaching and learning in any fields (in this case mathematics). While some textbooks analyses emphasized the content coverage (Fuson, Stigler, & Bartsch, 1998), some paid attention on pedagogical principles for teachers (Mayer, Sims, & Tajika, 1995).

The Turkish Ministry of National Education has attempted to increase the quality of the Turkish education system with reforms (Erbas & Ulubay, 2008). In 1997, the compulsory education increased from five to eight years. Recently, in 2012, the duration of compulsory education increased from eight to twelve years. In addition to these educational reforms, the textbooks have been in development and transition process from hard copy to e-books in tablets for all students from 5^th to 12^th grades. To do so, Ministry of Turkish Education of Turkey has announced FATIH project to provide multi-touch tablets to every students from 5^th grade to 12^th grade, and integrate the tablets into the classroom teaching and learning in most subjects including math.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze graphical representations of a current 6^th grade Turkish mathematics textbook (Turkish Ministry of National Education, 2010) in terms of its type and quality. According to the FATIH project website (FATIH, 2011), this analyzed current textbook’s content will be used as primary content resource for the new e-books in new tablets for students. The purpose for these e-book designs is to enrich the PDF form of the current textbook with interactive multimedia elements within multi-touch tablets (FATIH, 2011). Thus, the examination of this math textbook with GAP is critical because this will indicate how well graphics form and functions are, how useful the graphics, and how the integration of the graphics and text is (Slough, Cavlazoglu, Erdogan, & Akgun, 2012) in the most recent and commonly used 6^th grade math textbook in Turkey. In addition, results and suggestions from this study will inform current e-book developers to create the best possible and appropriate design. Hence, this study will be helpful in seeing how good integrated graphical representations and textual materials are in the current math textbook. Then, recommendation for future e-books developments for tablets will be helpful seeing how this current math textbook can provide rich educational products for teaching and learning math in new e-books.

Method

The sample of this study consists of two chapters from a Turkish Ministry of National Education (2011) approved sixth grade math textbook. In the sixth grade textbook, all graphics in the selected chapters were coded and analyzed with the Graphical Analysis Protocol (GAP) and coding key (Slough, McTigue, Kim, & Jennings, 2010). All researchers coded an English textbook to establish familiarity with the instrument and coding key. Then, the chapters were coded individually by the two researchers who read Turkish. Finally, any differences in coding were negotiated.

Expected Outcomes

In general, the Turkish math textbook made a positive impression with its graphics and text-graphics integration. The Turkish math text has large numbers of high-quality graphics with mostly logical organizations and connections. The math text’s graphics distributed mainly in photos, stylized drawings, scale diagrams, and hybrids. The use of several small photographs in a page with low resolution was observed. We recommend inclusion of higher resolution graphics in the future e-book’s developments. A positive impression is that the Turkish text’s graphics are pedagogically well integrated. Hence, including similar more graphics in the future e-books is suggested. Although overall the Turkish math textbook had positive impressions with its graphics, there were several problems about the graphics that need to be taken into consideration. First, the Turkish math text used almost no captions. Another problem we found that is that the low indexical referencing. In the textbook, the verbal texts mostly do not reference related graphics. Therefore, we counsel a close attention for better indexical referencing in the new generation math e-books.

References

Board of Education and Discipline. (2005). The handbook of introduction to primary education curriculum. Ankara, Turkey: MEB. Erbas, A. K., & Ulubay, M. (2008). Implementation of the new Turkish primary education mathematics curriculum in the sixth grade: A survey of teacher’s views. The New Educational Reviews, 16(3-4), 51-75. FATIH. (2011). E-book content criteria. Retrieved from http://fatihprojesi.meb.gov.tr/icerikeklenti/e061211115313.pdf Fuson, K., Stigler, J., & Bartsch, K. (1998). Brief report: Grade placement of addition and subtraction topics in Japan, Mainland China, the Soviet Union, Taiwan, and the United States. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 19, 449-456. Freitas, C. A. (2007). Talked images: Examining the contextualised nature of image use. Pedagogies, 2, 151-164. Mayer, R. E., Sims, V., & Tajika, H. (1995). A comparsion of how text books teach mathematical problem solving in Japan and the United States. American Educational Research Journal, 32, 443-460. Thomson, S., Fleming, N. (2004). Summing it up: Mathematics achievement in Australian schools, TIMSS, 2002. Australian Council for Educational Research. Camberwell. Retrieved from http://www.timss.acer.edu.au/documents/TIMSS_02_Maths_ES_ES.pdf Turkish Ministry of National Education. (2011). 2011 annual budget report. Retrieved from http://sgb.meb.gov.tr Slough, S. W., McTigue, E. M., Kim, S., & Jennings, S. (2010). Science textbooks’ use of representation: A descriptive analysis of four sixth grade science texts. Reading Psychology, 31, 301-325. Slough, S., Cavlazoglu, Erdogan, N. & Akgun, O. (2012). Descriptive analysis of a sixth-grade Turkish science text with recommendations for development of future e-resources for multi-touch tablets. In P. Resta (Ed.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference 2012 (pp. 4537-4542). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. Retrieved from http://www.editlib.org/p/40327.

Author Information

Baki Cavlazoglu (presenting / submitting)

Texas A&M University, United States of America

Ali Bicer