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Do mathematics textbooks cultivate shallow teaching? Applying the TIMSS Video Study criteria to Australian eighth-grade mathematics textbooks

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Abstract

Australian eighth-grade mathematics lessons were shown by the 1999 TIMSS Video Study to use a high proportion of problems of low procedural complexity, with considerable repetition, and an absence of deductive reasoning. Using definitions from the Video Study, this study re-investigated this ‘shallow teaching syndrome’ by examining the problems on three topics in nine eighth-grade textbooks from four Australian states for procedural complexity, type of solving processes, degree of repetition, proportion of ‘application’ problems and proportion of problems requiring deductive reasoning. Overall, there was broad similarity between the characteristics of problems in the textbooks and in the Australian Video Study lessons. There were, however, considerable differences between textbooks and between topics within textbooks. In some books, including the best-selling textbooks in several states, the balance is too far towards repetitive problems of low procedural complexity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Science and Mathematics Education, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne, 3010, VIC, Australia

    Jill Vincent & Kaye Stacey

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  1. Jill Vincent
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  2. Kaye Stacey
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Vincent, J., Stacey, K. Do mathematics textbooks cultivate shallow teaching? Applying the TIMSS Video Study criteria to Australian eighth-grade mathematics textbooks. Math Ed Res J 20, 82–107 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03217470

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