Exploring the use of textbooks in Key Stage 3 geography classrooms: a small‐scale study

ABSTRACT

Research on school textbooks in the UK is surprisingly sparse. It consists mainly of reports on quantitative measures of textbook provision or else desk research on the contents of textbooks. Though valuable in a number of respects, work of this nature fails to address more dynamic questions relating to the way textbooks are used in the classroom and in home study. While textbook use is linked to some degree to how teachers and children perceive the role of the textbooks, and may therefore be open to enquiry by way of survey methods, there is a need to access classrooms directly. This study attempts to do this using an observation instrument developed for use by student teachers, who became the principal data‐gatherers in a specially arranged experiment in textbook provision. With support in kind arranged through the Educational Publishers’ Council, participating geography departments were able to choose, free of charge, the printed resources they required to teach an aspect of the KS3 programme of study to Year 8. In exchange they agreed to open geography classrooms to observation and scrutiny. This article describes the results of the study.

KEY WORDS:

• textbooks
• geography
• classrooms
• programmes of study