Given the results of experience and research, it is no longer possible to treat school textbooks as something incidental or accessory to the educational process. In the last few years, funding agencies have gradually but systematically initiated reflection on textbooks. It is now accepted that pupil access to school textbooks is one criterion for…

Until the end of the last century the school textbook served only one purpose, which was to educate; today, faced with competition from the media, it also must be attractive. The development of the textbook over the last century has been characterized, on one hand, by greater diversity, and hence greater complexity, in the typographical methods…

A study examined whether published texts and studies being used in the speech communication classroom adequately address the needs of students when they go into the laboratory setting of forensic tournaments. Published studies in speech communication, selected textbooks used in the basic speech course, and selected studies and textbooks in…

This publication is designed to provide guidance to secondary teachers, curriculum developers, and geographic educators responsible for selecting appropriate text materials in geography and the social sciences. The most commonly used geography textbooks for grades 7 through 12 are reviewed. The reviews identify major components of sound geography…

The attribute-function relationships of visual illustrations used in educational textbooks were tested in a study of the effectiveness of illustrations providing either analogical or literal representation in serving two specific instructional functions. Subjects were 180 randomly selected undergraduate college students, who read two passages, one…

A study assessed the relationship between formal main idea statements in text and substantive material that students need to understand the key concepts in textbooks. The study addressed two questions: (1) What percentage of textbook paragraphs contains material important for understanding major textbook concepts? and (2) How important are formal…

This study: (1) comprehensively reviews previous research on the treatment of evolution in high school biology textbooks; (2) describes the treatment of evolutionary theory, including mention of creationist explanations of the development of life forms, in the most recent editions of 15 high school biology textbooks from the major publishers; and…

A recurring question in the study of the specialized English used in various technical disciplines is the degree to which contextual variables--including subject matter--account for the particular distributions of lexicogrammatical features in texts of different disciplines. Two contextual variables related to role relationships in the semiotic…

This study determined the quantitative and qualitative portrayal of females and minorities in the illustrations of seven contemporary elementary science textbook series. An evaluation instrument was devised to determine the current status of the targeted groups. Illustrations were evaluated on the basis of minority versus nonminority and male…

A study was undertaken to determine what factors distinguish low potency pictures (those that elicit a relatively low amount of language) from high potency pictures. Pictures were selected from eight first and second grade readers and classified according to the Picture Potency Formula. The results indicated that three factors were found to be…

The most frequently chosen textbooks for introductory sociology courses are analyzed. The study reveals that sociology texts change through incrementation rather than through innovative thinking or by rational decisions as to the best way to present sociology to students. Sociology students are not considered in textbook selection; rather,…

"Reading Basics Plus" consists of an integrated set of texts, workbooks, duplicating masters, word cards, charts, and teacher's guidebooks. By a process of small group trials, students' and teachers' reactions to the proposed content of the "Reading Basics Plus" program for grades four, five, and six were obtained in order to provide editors and…

Major investigations have shown that children care little for social studies as a school subject. Therefore, a closer look was taken at social studies textbooks in order to ascertain if the reading difficulty of the texts was an important cause behind the children's dislike. This study evaluated the reading levels of 41 social studies texts…

This study examined the relationships between the reading achievement of college students, the readability of the textbooks they used, and college achievement. Measures included reading-grade levels from the Nelson-Denny Reading Test, functional reading levels as measured by cloze scores, Dale-Chall readability estimates for textbooks used by the…