A Cross-National Comparison of Turkish and American Mathematics Textbooks in Terms of Fraction Division Contexts

Author : Ramazan Avcu
Number of pages : 88-106

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to analyze and compare Turkish and the US mathematics textbooks with respect to contexts involved in fraction division tasks. The findings showed that the number and context of fraction division tasks varied to a considerable extent both within and across the selected two education systems. More than half of the Turkish textbook tasks and only a quarter of US textbook tasks were contextual. The US textbooks included more varied task contexts compared to Turkish textbooks. More specifically, food and beverages context was existent in all textbooks. Shopping context was non-existent in the US textbooks, while student dependent contexts, sports, land, painting, animals, geography, free time activities, recycling, auto accessories, and room contexts were absent from Turkish textbooks. The implications for textbooks developers in providing students more quality learning opportunities in terms of fraction division contexts were then discussed.

Keywords

Comparative studies, textbook analysis, fraction division, task context

Read: 751

Download: 285