“School Textbooks: Critical approaches to the evaluation of their cognitive and teaching-learning functions”
Elias Matsagouras
Page 60-92
Abstract
The last few decades school textbooks have been the subject of research analysis, which has used many different criteria and models for this purpose. In this paper we present an evaluation framework, appropriate for analyzing and evaluating textbooks both at the macro-level of the total structure of the textbook and at the micro-level of the individual chapters of the textbook. The aim of both levels of analysis is to evaluate how well the textbook being analyzed is functioning as a resource supporting the act of teaching and the process of learning. The main principle which keeps the levels and the functions of the framework tied together is the Vygotskyan principle of mediation. Textbooks are expected to mediate learning and the proposed framework is examining and evaluating the various facets of this mediation.