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Background Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) content in mathematics education has gained increasing attention in various countries. However, despite the critical role that textbooks play in mathematics teaching and learning, existing research on mathematics textbooks has largely overlooked examining STEM content and their characteristics. This study aims to analyze the state-of-the-art of STEM content in U.S. and China’s middle school mathematics textbooks. Using content analysis, this study identified and examined 993 units of STEM content in Big Idea Maths (BIM), a U.S. series and 448 units in the People’s Education Press (PEP), a China series. For this study, a “unit” was either a single section or subsection, one to several paragraphs, or a picture/graph and its caption. Results The majority of the STEM content in both series were from the natural sciences (79.1% in BIM and 55.1% in PEP), in the study of number and algebra, and placed mostly in exercise, with few authentic contexts (i.e., using real-world situations or scenarios with authentic data) and limited information and communication technology (ICT) integration. The enriched-level STEM content (i.e., full integration of in-depth and a wide range of content knowledge) was very limited. The PEP series contained more from engineering and agriculture, and presented more in the main text; the BIM series presented more in statistics and probability, placed more in chapter previews, had more moderate-level content (i.e., partial integration of content knowledge) and a balanced distribution of authentic and non-authentic contexts in enriched-level content. Conclusion and implications The current STEM content, especially those at enriched-level, is limited. There are considerable differences in the distribution of STEM content in both series. Further studies are needed to explore the appropriate proportion of different types of STEM content in developing mathematics textbooks, for example, how to better integrate STEM content from technology and engineering disciplines, into the study of shapes and geometry, with authentic contexts and ICT. Moreover, while enriched-level STEM content provides practitioners and textbook developers with easily accessible inspiration and references to design STEM-related activities in mathematics classrooms, how this content could effectively scaffold practical classroom teaching merits future study.

The present study analyzes the English textbook of Grade 8 published by Punjab Textbook Board in Pakistan in the light of student learning outcomes (SLOs) of four competencies: reading and thinking skills, writing skills, oral communication skills, and formal and lexical aspects of language of the latest English curriculum in Pakistan. Competency (C), standards (S), benchmarks (B), and SLOs are the parameters given in the National Curriculum. A semi-structured checklist was developed by the researchers, validated by three experts from the relevant field, and improved in the light of experts’ opinion and pilot study findings. To evaluate the textbook competencies and their SLOs, the evidence was sought from the textbook, and remarks were given in the last column (remarks/analysis) of the checklist. The results revealed that the textbook understudy focuses on reading comprehension only. There is thus a dire need to incorporate thinking skills, writing skills, oral/aural communication skills, and formal and lexical aspects of language in the textbook.

This paper presents a survey study aiming to systematically examine, analyse and review relevant research focusing on mathematics textbooks and hence identify future directions in this field of research. The literature surveyed is selected from different data sources, including mainly journal articles, research theses and conference proceedings. The survey revealed that important progress has been made over the last few decades in mathematics textbook research, though the major achievement has been concentrated in the areas of textbook analysis (including textbook comparison), and the use of textbooks in teaching and learning. It is overall no longer true that the textbook research in mathematics is “scattered, inconclusive, and often trivial” as described six decades ago; however, the development of research on mathematics textbooks has been unbalanced in different areas. Following the review and discussion, the paper proposes five needed directions for advancing the research in this field.

A typical mathematics assignment consists of a block of problems devoted to the same topic, yet several classroom-based randomized controlled trials have found that students obtain higher test scores when most practice problems are mixed with different kinds of problems—a format known as interleaved practice. Interleaving prevents students from safely assuming that each practice problem relates to the same skill or concept as the previous problem, thus forcing them to choose an appropriate strategy on the basis of the problem itself. Yet despite the efficacy of interleaved practice, blocked practice predominates most mathematics textbooks. As an illustration, we examined 13,505 practice problems in six representative mathematics texts and found that only 9.7% of the problems were interleaved. This translates to only one or two interleaved problems per school day. In brief, strong evidence suggests that students benefit from heavy doses of interleaved practice, yet most mathematics texts provide scarcely any.

In this survey paper we aim to provide an overview of research on mathematics textbooks and, more broadly, curriculum resources as instruments for change related to mathematical content, instructional goals and practices, and student learning of mathematics. In particular, we elaborate on the following themes: (1) The role of curriculum resources as instruments for change from a theoretical perspective; (2) The design of curriculum resources to mediate the implementation of reform ideas and innovative practice; (3) Teachers’ influence on the implementation of change through curriculum resources; (4) Students’ influence on the implementation of change through curriculum resources; and (5) Evidence of curriculum resources yielding changes in student-related factors or variables. We claim that, whilst textbooks and curriculum resources are influential, they alone cannot change teachers’ teaching nor students’ learning practices in times of curricular change. Moreover, more knowledge is needed about features of curriculum resources that support the implementation of change. We contend that curriculum innovations are likely to be successful, if teachers and students are supported to co- and re-design the relevant curriculum trajectories and materials in line with the reform efforts and their own individual needs.

Open textbooks, freely available open educational resources, have an ever-growing presence in learning environments around the world, though detailed studies of their development are rare. The challenges of tracking textbook writing activity in a precise manner over time may account for this sparsity. To highlight how process-tracing research can contribute insight to the textbook development literature, particularly that focused on open textbook writing, this study addresses the roles that think-aloud protocols (TAPs) played during the construction of an open corequisite writing textbook. The volume, which was designed with underprepared university students in mind, stresses the growth of academic and workplace writing skills together with effective study techniques, and its two novice coursebook authors used self-recorded concurrent verbalization and interviews to document its creation. By analyzing the data collected via means of qualitative content analysis, they found that concurrent verbalization exposed actual textbook writing behaviors, logged instances of metacognitive awareness, and documented project reflections, and herein they frame TAPs as spaces abundant with opportunities to view reflexivity (reflective practice) and learning during open textbook production. The research evidences the various functions concurrent verbalization may serve in process-tracing studies of textbook writing and demonstrates that the method can be deployed in flexible ways to address research objectives and make progress on writing projects that demand considerable time and focus. It also explains the advantages of collecting TAP data over successive writing sessions to detect reflexivity during materials development. Plain Language Summary Thinking aloud as a Way to Prompt Reflection on Practice While Creating an Open Textbook Concurrent verbalization is a method that can be used to gather information about research participants’ thoughts as they carry out activities. During a concurrent verbalization session, a participant thinks aloud, and what they say is recorded so that it can be examined to address a study’s objectives. In the research project described in this paper, the authors used concurrent verbalization along with interviews to communicate their thoughts as they wrote an open (freely available) textbook for underprepared university students looking to improve their writing and study skills. They sought to track their writing processes in detail to increase understanding of how open textbooks are created since few such studies exist. So, while writing chapters, the inexperienced textbook authors audio recorded themselves thinking aloud and then looked for relationships amongst points mentioned in the recorded and transcribed material. Prominent in this material was the notion that concurrent verbalization played different roles during the textbook’s creation, and that is the research focus addressed here. In particular, the method brought to light how the authors behaved while writing, how they reacted to thinking aloud as they wrote, and how they remarked on textbook content already composed. In doing so, concurrent verbalization offered opportunities for exploration of and reflection on writing practices, as well as chances to learn from those activities. The paper emphasizes that concurrent verbalization can perform different functions in studies that track writing processes, can be used in flexible ways to fulfill research and writing project aims, and can encourage writers to reflect on their practices.

National narratives have often served to mobilize the masses for war by providing myths and distorted interpretations of the past, while conversely wars were major sources for producing national narratives. Because national history is very likely to remain a central topic in history education, albeit in ways that differ from how the topic was used fifty years ago, it is important to gain a greater understanding of the underlying structures and mechanisms of these narratives in history textbooks. After outlining the historical interconnectedness of the emerging nation states and history teaching, this review article explains the complexity of the history textbook as an educational resource. Next, we identify some current problems and challenges in history textbook research. We continue by discussing promising research trends related mainly to national narratives, such as the analysis of images, the use of digital tools, and studies of the autonomy of textbook narratives and of history textbooks in relation to other media. Another recent reorientation is textbook research that uses a holistic approach. By this we mean studies that examine the history textbook as a whole: composition, periodization, visual intertextuality and chapters that do not at first glance appear to focus on national history. These studies offer new insights and explanations for the perpetuation of national narratives in history textbooks.

Reconceptualized Family Resemblance Approach to Nature of Science (RFN) explains science as a cognitive, epistemic, and social institutional system. The aim of this study is to examine the inclusion of Nature of Science (NOS) in the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grade Turkish middle school science textbooks. The “content,” “activity,” and “assessment” sections of each science textbook were traced based on RFN categories which are “aims and values (AV),” “scientific practices (SP),” “methods and methodological rules (M),” “scientific knowledge (SK),” and “social institutional systems (SI)” through content analysis. As a result, the total frequency value of the codes regarding RFN categories was found to be 196 in the 5th grade, 548 in the 6th grade, 284 in the 7th grade, and 427 in the 8th grade science textbooks. Most references to NOS were found in the “activity” sections of the textbooks. Although there are some references to NOS in each textbook, some of the RFN categories in the whole textbooks are missing. Furthermore, a consistent progression for the frequency of NOS related keywords was not found throughout the grade levels. In conclusion, there is a need to integrate NOS into science textbooks holistically and in a balanced way to provide a vertical articulation throughout the grade levels.

Primary school textbooks can enhance the acquisition of arithmetic word problem solving skills by offering diverse problems based on their semantic-mathematical structure with targeted reasoning aids, including schematics highlighting their mathematical structure. While certain countries, such as the USA and Singapore, have made progress in improving the problems and aids found in their textbooks through the use of specific theoretical-methodological approaches, textbooks from other countries, such as Spain, have included a very limited variety of problems, with hardly any aids to reasoning. Recently, however, two of the most widely used Spanish publishers have released textbooks that adhere to these theoretical-methodological approaches. To assess whether these textbooks progressed past their predecessors in relevant aspects related to the resolution of arithmetic word problems, we conducted an analysis of the quantity of problems and their variety in terms of semantic-mathematical structure and level of difficulty, as well as the inclusion of schematic representations of their mathematical structure. The study demonstrated improvements among textbooks when publishers adopted a theoretical framework, suggesting that a reference framework could enhance textbook design. This is particularly relevant in countries such as Spain, where there are no applicable standards or official curricula for designing textbooks related to solving arithmetic word problems.

The development of English as a global language has urged the field of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) to implement some reforms in relation to textbook design and curriculum development as well as the approaches to and goals of English language teaching (ELT). From the multilingual perspective, Global Englishes (GE) and translanguaging have both challenged the traditional native-oriented goal of ELT. Based on the level of language policy planning in the multilingual Greater Bay Area of China, this paper addresses the need to incorporate GE and translanguaging into textbook design and curriculum development. Referring to Byram’s framework of cultural content in textbooks, and to the GE proposal of exposure of multilingualism/multiculturalism and respect of diverse culture and identity in ELT, the paper further reports a case study to analyse the cultural content of the textbook, Speaking Critically: Intercultural Conversation . The paper also explores university students’ attitudes towards the integration of Chinese local culture into textbooks. The paper ends by addressing some challenges associated with translating GE and translanguaging into textbook design and curriculum development, and it provides further implications of such a proposal.