The informed choice: mathematics textbook assessment in light of educational freedom, effectiveness, and improvement in primary education

Abstract

In many educational systems, textbooks are a leading factor for daily instructional practices, and consequently may affect educational outcomes.Whereas in many countries, textbook assessment is a common practice in light of evaluating and improving educational effectiveness, in other countries these practices are absent, mainly under the realm of educational freedom. In this study, we attempt to highlight the potential contribution of textbook assessment to educational freedom, effectiveness and improvement, by means of mathematics' textbook assessment in Flanders' primary education (Grade 4). Multilevel (multivariate) modelling was used, studying the relation of textbooks with both mean achievement (overall and in different content and cognitive subdomains) and (social and ethnic) equity. Furthermore, multilevel quantile regression analyses were used to investigate textbooks' effect in different quantiles of the achievement distribution. Implications of the results of textbook assessment are discussed in light of its contribution to educational freedom, effectiveness and improvement.

Do Textbooks Matter for Reading Comprehension? A Study in Flemish Primary Education

“…Accordingly, we cannot reject the null hypotheses that the textbooks do not affect children's learning progress in reading comprehension and engagement in reading. These results are somewhat surprising, given that former research on the effects of textbooks generally found significant effects for academic performance (Goffin et al, 2016;Bellens et al, 2019(e.g., Törnroos, 2005Van Steenbrugge et al, 2013;Hadar, 2017;van den Ham and Heinze, 2018). Furthermore, there are also several theoretical reasons to expect that textbooks matter for student's academic performance (Schmidt et al, 1997;Valverde et al, 2002;Törnroos, 2005) in reading comprehension and engagement.…”

“…Furthermore, even after controlling for student characteristics, differences between textbooks remained. Notably, both Goffin et al (2016) and Bellens et al (2019) found similar patterns for which specific textbooks were more effective for mathematics than others.…”

“…The authors found clear differences between textbooks, even after controlling for socioeconomic background indicators at the school-level. Accordingly, a crosssectional study in grade 4 on the Flemish TIMSS 2015 data (Bellens et al, 2019) showed that textbooks are related to the average academic performance in mathematics. Furthermore, even after controlling for student characteristics, differences between textbooks remained.…”

A Comparative Analysis of Fraction Addition and Subtraction Contents in the Mathematics Textbooks in the U.S. and South Korea

“…Developing high-quality textbooks is cardinal for ensuring students' mathematical learning opportunities and improving their outcomes (Bellens et al, 2020;Hadar, 2017). Existing literature has offered guidance on how to design fraction addition and subtraction problems with regard to horizontal and vertical dimensions (e.g., Son, 2012).…”

“…Conversely, the students who learned mathematics with a low level of cognitive demands tasks tended to develop low-order thinking skills, such as recalling and computation (Mullis et al, 2012;Tan et al, 2018). As different learning opportunities lead to different mathematical outcomes (Bellens et al, 2020;Hadar, 2017;van den Ham & Heinze, 2018), developing a high-quality mathematics textbook is a critical issue for educators.…”