Investigating students’ perceptions concerning textbook use in mathematics: a comparative study of secondary schools between Shanghai and England

ABSTRACT

This article reports an empirical study aiming to investigate students’ use of mathematics textbooks in Shanghai and England, with a comparative perspective. The study used mixed methods to collect the data through student questionnaire, student focus group interview and classroom observation. 161 Shanghai seventh- and eighth-grade students and 206 England year-seven and -eight students participated in the study. The results indicated that there existed considerable differences between Shanghai and England with respect to the roles that textbooks as curriculum resources play in students’ learning of mathematics. While Shanghai students relied heavily on textbooks and used them in various situations, had a strong sense of self-regulation behind the use, and thought highly of textbooks in their learning of mathematics, English students seldom incorporated textbooks in their learning of mathematics, used them mainly depending on teachers’ instructions, and held a relatively critical view of textbooks. The article also offered explanations and discussed the implications of the results concerning the teaching and learning of mathematics.

KEYWORDS:

• Mathematics learning
• curriculum resources
• textbooks
• middle school

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplemental data

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Notes

1. Theoretically, schools in Shanghai can adopt any textbooks as long as they are approved by the government. However, in reality, there has been only one series of mathematics textbooks developed and then approved by the government; hence, virtually all schools in Shanghai use the same series of textbooks.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yi Wang

Yi Wang is a post-doctoral research fellow in the School of Mathematical Sciences at Beijing Normal University. She got a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction (mathematics) from Beijing Normal University, China. After that, she continued doing research in mathematics education with a focus on students’ use of learning resources and earned her PhD at the University of Southampton, UK. Her research interests include mathematics curriculum, textbooks, e-learning, and educational assessment, in which areas she has published several articles on peer-reviewed research journals and conferences.

Lianghuo Fan

Lianghuo Fan is a distinguished professor and director of Asian Centre for Mathematics Education, School of Mathematics Sciences at East China Normal University, Shanghai and a visiting professor in Southampton Education School at the University of Southampton, UK. He earned his MSc in mathematics education and mathematical history at East China Normal University, Shanghai, and his PhD in education at the University of Chicago, USA. Professor Fan has a broad and interdisciplinary interest in research areas including mathematics classroom instruction, curriculum studies and textbook research, teacher education and professional development, international and comparative education in mathematics, education policy and sociology, and algorithm of polynomial algebra. He has a wide range of publications in these areas