Are textbooks facilitators or barriers for teachers’ teaching and instructional change? An investigation of secondary mathematics teachers in Shanghai, China

Abstract

In this paper we report on a survey study of teachers’ perceptions of how mathematics textbooks, including broadly student books, teacher manuals, and exercise books, facilitate or hinder teachers’ teaching in Shanghai educational settings. For the study we established a conceptual framework about teachers’ teaching, partly drawing on Shulman’s model of pedagogical reasoning and action of teachers. The data were collected from a stratified random sample of 133 mathematics teachers in 13 secondary schools through a questionnaire, and follow-up interviews with 24 of them. The results revealed the following: the textbooks were highly regarded and used by the Shanghai mathematics teachers as facilitators rather than barriers for their teaching and instructional change, and the facilitation was most evident in the process of transformation and comprehension, and least evident in evaluation in teachers’ pedagogical reasoning and action; compared with student books and exercise books, teacher manuals played a larger facilitating role in teachers’ teaching; and finally, compared with teacher characteristics, school characteristics had a greater influence on the extent to which textbooks played a role of facilitation or hindrance for teachers’ instructional practice. Implications and suggestions are given at the end of the paper. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11858-021-01306-6.

Matematik öğretmenlerinin yüz yüze ve uzaktan eğitimde matematik ders kitabı kullanma sıklığının karşılaştırılması

“…Even in developing countries that are successful in the international large-scale assessments, it is intended to promote the use of textbooks in teaching in order to improve educational quality and is criticized for not being used adequately (Oates, 2014). In Far East countries such as Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea, which have always ranked high in these exams, textbooks are seen as an indispensable material of instruction (Fan et al, 2021;Oates, 2014). Textbooks are the most effective resource in favor of mathematics teaching and learning among school subjects (Haggart & Pepin, 2002;Fan et al, 2013), and they are used by learners in the self-regulation process of knowledge.…”

“…Textbooks are the most effective resource in favor of mathematics teaching and learning among school subjects (Haggart & Pepin, 2002;Fan et al, 2013), and they are used by learners in the self-regulation process of knowledge. Teachers utilize mathematics textbooks to comprehend the curriculum goals and to shape their classroom practices at different stages of schooling since they play a major role in providing mathematical knowledge (Fan et al, 2021).…”