Problem solving in Swedish mathematics textbooks for upper secondary school

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study is to analyse how mathematical problem solving is represented in mathematical textbooks for Swedish upper secondary school. The analysis comprises dominating Swedish textbook series, and relates to uncovering (a) the quantity of tasks that are actually mathematical problems, (b) their location in the chapter, (c) their difficulty level, and (d) their context. Based on an analysis of 5,722 tasks from the area of calculus, it is concluded that the textbooks themselves contain very few tasks that can be defined as mathematical problems, and that those that are mathematical problems are found at the end of a chapter at the most difficult level, and are presented in a pure mathematical context. Implications are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• mathematics textbooks
• problem solving
• textbook analysis
• upper secondary school

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the research school “Developing mathematics education” (2011–2014), financed by the Swedish Research Council.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹Throughout the article, MPS refers to mathematical problem solving, MP to a mathematical problem (task) and MPs to mathematical problems (tasks, plural).

²All citations from the Swedish steering documents are the authors’ translations.

³Authors' translation.

⁴Authors' translation.

⁵Authors' translation.

⁶Throughout this sub-section, quotation marks denote the authors’ translations from the Swedish textbooks.

⁷Calculus is first presented in course 3c.

⁸All translations in the examples are the authors’.