Support for graphicacy: a review of textbooks available to accounting students

This Teaching Note reports on the support available in textbooks for graphicacy that will help students understand the complexities of graphical displays. Graphical displays play a significant role in financial reporting, and studies have found evidence of measurement distortion and selection bias. To understand the complexities of graphical displays, students need a sound understanding of graphicacy and support from the textbooks available to them to develop that understanding. The Teaching Note reports on a survey that examined the textbooks available to students attending two Scottish universities. The support of critical graphicacy skills was examined in conjunction with textbook characteristics. The survey, which was not restricted to textbooks designated as required reading, examined the textbooks for content on data measurement and graphical displays. The findings highlight a lack of support for graphicacy in the textbooks selected. The study concludes that accounting educators need to scrutinize more closely the selection of textbooks and calls for more extensive research into textbooks as a pedagogic tool

The role of textbooks in lower secondary schools in the Czech Republic

The paper presents research on textbook use conducted in lower secondary schools in Ostrava, in the Czech Republic. The main research aim was to identify the role the textbooks play in teaching and learning in lower secondary schools. The factors influencing the role of textbooks were also examined. The concept of the role of the textbook is discussed from several perspectives in this paper.The role of textbooks was empirically investigated from four viewpoints: prevalence of textbook use, textbook-based activities, the role of textbooks in students? homework, and textbook control. The investigation was conducted in ten lower secondary schools. A total of 155 lessons across 20 classes were observed to elicit data on the prevalence of textbook use in various phases of the lessons, and the time and frequency of textbook-based activities. The observations were conducted during English, History, Mathematics and Civics lessons and supplemented with individual semi-structured interviews with teachers and pair interviews with students.The research findings confirmed that textbooks were used extensively, particularly in the presentation of new content. Textbooks were mainly used for activities based on text perception. Simple activities prevailed, such as reading the text aloud, or students following the text with the teacher?s explanation. As to the students? use of text materials, the research concluded that students largely ignored the textbooks for their homework; they did not “learn from textbooks”. The teachers used the textbooks for various purposes: primarily as a resource for content and for assigning tasks and exercises. The research suggests that textbooks impact greatly on lesson content and to a certain degree on the methodology of the lesson

The textbook as classroom context variable

To explore the role of the textbook as a context variable in process—product relationships, data on teaching practices and learning outcomes from the IEA Classroom Environment Study in The Netherlands were used. The sample consisted of 50 secondary school mathematics classes and their teachers. Three textbooks were represented in the sample. Data collection included systematic observation of lessons and administration of tests and questionnaires to students and teachers. Nine teaching practices analogous to the distinguishing features of the textbooks were identified, and data relating to these practices were analysed. Four of the teaching practices occurred to different degrees in the three groups of textbook users. The correlations with two learning outcomes in different groups of textbook users were significantly different for 5 of the 18 cases. These results suggest that the textbook is an important context variable

Management by Textbook: The Role of Textbooks in Developing Critical Thinking

© 2015, © The Author(s) 2015. Critical thinking is widely regarded as a crucial capability for competent management and also for any leadership role in society. In this article, we ask, “How do textbooks play a role in the weakness of many management graduates’ critical thinking skills?” Management teachers can find plentiful advice about best teaching practices, yet the critical skills gap remains. We argue that the nature and use of management textbooks intersect and interact with students’ epistemology to support a culture of surface learning, resulting in a failure to develop critical thinking skills. Textbooks reinforce underdeveloped student epistemology through limitations of content and position students as passive recipients of an authoritative version of oversimplified knowledge. In our survey of 30 successful management textbooks, we found the majority of popular management textbooks potentially inhibit, or only weakly support, the development of students’ capacity for critical thinking. The article concludes with suggestions for improving textbooks and textbook choice or considering alternatives

Human rights education : a comparison of mother tongue textbooks in Turkey and France

Textbooks are major instructional tools playing an important role in education at all grades. The purpose of this study is to compare the level of allocation of human rights issues – rights, freedom, democracy, justice, tolerance and peace – in mother tongue textbooks in Turkey and France. For this aim, ten mother tongue textbooks from both countries were examined. Content analysis method was used to analyse the textbooks. As a result, it was observed that human rights issues are included more in Turkish textbooks when compared to French textbooks. It was found that in the textbooks of both countries the ‘rights’ subcategory is included the most while the ‘justice’ subcategory is included the least. While the intensity scores of the ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ subcategories were listed toward the very end in the textbooks of both countries, the ‘democracy’ subcategory occupies more places in French textbooks whereas the ‘freedom’ subcategory occupies more places in Turkish textbooks. Besides, the intensity scores for the subcategories of ‘rights’, ‘peace’ and ‘tolerance’ hold the first three places in the mother tongue textbooks of both countries.peer-reviewe

An Analysis Of Selected Eleventh Grade English Textbooks

Textbooks play a pivotal role in language classrooms in all types of educational institutions. However, textbook selection and evaluation is often given little time or attention despite its central role in most language courses. This study aimed at determining the extent to whichtwo selected eleventh grade English textbooks are appropriate in terms of content based on BSNP framework for textbook evaluation. Using descriptive qualitative method, this study attempted to find out the appropriateness of the content of the textbooks. A checklist adapted from BSNP (2014) framework for textbook evaluation was made, focused on the areas of relevance of materials with competency standards and basic competencies, materials accuracy, and supporting learning materials. The findings show that both textbooks were appropriate in terms of content based on BSNP framework for textbook evaluation

A Case Study on the Role Models in Chinese Senior High School English Textbooks—The Case of the Textbooks Published by BNUP in 2019

Moral education has always been an important mission in Chinese education. English textbooks, as one of the vital elements in English teaching, are the main vehicle for transmitting English disciplinary knowledge, and the essential medium for teachers’ teaching and students’ learning. In fact, the values are often not directly presented in textbooks but are “hidden” in vehicles such as figures and storylines constructed by complex multimodal symbols (Feng, 2015). Therefore, it is essential to explore the images of figures and their values in Chinese English textbooks. This study takes one version of Chinese senior high school English textbooks published by BNUP in 2019 as the research objects. Based on the data collection and thorough analysis, the results show that Chinese senior high school English textbooks published by BNUP emphasize the moral education of students, and the selection of role models is relatively reasonable. Nevertheless, several shortcomings still exist, such as the unbalanced selection of role models in terms of gender and age

The Role of Law in U.S. History Textbooks

This Article analyzes the references to law found in three standard U.S. History textbooks: (1) ALAN BRINKLEY, AMERICAN HISTORY CONNECTING WITH THE PAST 745 (McGraw-Hill Educ., 15th ed. 2015); (2) ERIC FONER, GIVE ME LIBERTY! AN AMERICAN HISTORY 461 (Steve Forman et al. eds., 5th ed. 2017); and (3) DAVID GOLDFIELD ET AL., THE AMERICAN JOURNEY: A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES (7th ed. Combined vol. 2014, 2011, 2008). The Article includes a quantitative analysis of topics (i.e., tabulating the topics that appear most frequently in the texts arranged chronologically) as well as summaries of those topics. It also discusses and draws conclusions regarding the forces that have shaped the development of American legal history—in particular the complex relationships among interest groups, individual historical figures, executives, legislators, and judges