Reading is an integral part of chemistry education. The language of chemistry plays a major role when reading chemistry texts and textbooks. Reading textual and non-textual explanations impact students' understanding of chemistry texts and textbooks. In our review we outline the importance of reading texts and textbooks in chemistry education. We…

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…

Analogical reasoning is both an innate ability and a basic learning mechanism that can be improved. In classrooms, it is an important tool used by teachers, especially when explaining difficult or abstract issues. In addition to its use in all aspects of our lives, analogical reasoning is commonly used in textbooks. This research examines the…

Past studies of the treatment of Milgram's obedience experiments in social psychology textbooks from the 1960s to the 1990s discovered an evolving "Milgram-friendly" coverage style (dealing with criticisms of his experiments either summarily, in a pro-Milgram manner, or not at all). We examined 10 current social textbooks to determine…

International calls have been made for reasoning-and-proving to permeate school mathematics. It is important that efforts to heed this call are grounded in an understanding of the opportunities to reason-and-prove that already exist, especially in secondary-level geometry where reasoning-and-proving opportunities are prevalent but not thoroughly…

Textbook questions and exercises are quintessential part of every textbook. One can easily locate textbook questions at the end of the every chapter and also in between the texts. What are they meant for? Usually we think they are meant for assessing learners' understanding regarding subject knowledge, providing clue to teacher to form other…

The use of a required text is an accepted practice in most college courses, but two-thirds of the students are coming to class without reading the textbook, some of them never buying the textbook at all. A review of the literature about textbook usage and student reading habits provides a comparison between how faculty and students view the pros…

How have U.S. high school textbook depictions of World War II and Vietnam changed since the 1970s? We examined 102 textbooks published from 1970 to 2009 to see how they treated U.S. involvement in World War II and Vietnam. Our content analysis of high school history textbooks finds that U.S. textbooks increasingly focus on the personal experiences…

This article presents the results of an analysis of three Slovenian textbooks for high school physics, from the point of view of simplifications and idealizations in the field of mechanics. In modeling of physical systems, making simplifications and idealizations is important, since one ignores minor effects and focuses on the most important…

In this paper we share findings of a textbook analysis in which we explored the treatment of segregated education in eight, widely-used secondary United States history and government textbooks. We positioned our findings within the historiography related to the African American school experience which challenges the notion that the lack of…

Problem Statement: Since the 1970s, scientific literacy has been a major goal of national educational systems throughout the world, and thus reform movements in science education call for all students to be scientifically literate. Despite some good curricular changes and developments across the globe, much remains to be achieved. Given that…

This study assessed the representations of nature of science (NOS) in high school chemistry textbooks and the extent to which these representations have changed during the past four decades. Analyses focused on the empirical, tentative, inferential, creative, theory-driven, and social NOS, in addition to the myth of "The Scientific Method," the…

As much as 90 percent of classroom instructional time is structured by instructional materials, especially textbook. Research shows, however, that textbooks alone are not enough. Analyses of elementary grade social studies textbooks reveal that the breadth is too wide and the depth too shallow. Specific examples are provided. (RM)

Updates a study of the coverage of entrepreneurship contained in principles of economics textbooks originally carried out in the mid-1980s. Analyzes coverage of the same topics in 14 popular introductory texts. Concludes that entrepreneurship still has not worked its way into economics-principles texts. (DSK)

Ethics is of increasing concern to United States colleges and universities, according to a survey of 183 institutions on this issue focusing on two areas--public relations and advertising. A 75% return from 134 institutions disclosed that some 25% offer an ethics course but less than half require one. Overwhelmingly (93%), most respondents…