Teachers in elementary schools around Slovenia have a number of textbooks that can be used for teaching. The creation of any textbook requires an enormous amount of work, planning and designing, and that is especially true for textbooks of natural science subjects. Learning material must be designed to guide the pupil in the cognitive processing of information presented in the learning material, whereby the capacity of the working memory must not be exceeded. Science is on the rise nowadays, so it is important for students to approach these rather abstract themes, as this does not only help them, but also the entire human community. For this purpose, I decided to gain a better insight into the pupils reading of the textbook, and maybe find some advice that could help authors, editors, and textbook designers help with the creation of new learning materials. The aim of my diploma is to define the effectiveness of learning materials in achieving the learning goals in the field of embryonic and post-embryonic development in the subject of natural science in the 7th grade of the elementary school, as well as to analyze the part of the teaching material in which the seven year olds (N = 50) had the greatest problems with the understanding of said material. In my research, I used eye tracking technology, a preliminary assessment and knowledge test questionnaire. The analysis of the results of the questionnaire on the communication of learning material and the test on the content of the material revealed that the pupils had acquired the most knowledge of the incomplete and complete transformation of animals. The content was presented with both text and complementary image material, which points to the importance of the multimedia content of the textbooks. Using the eye tracker, a part of the text was analyzed, which caused the students the greatest difficulty in understanding, namely the diagram with the accompanying text on the differentiation of the stem cells. The analysis showed that the pupils do not connect the diagram and the acompanying text – they do not perceive them as a connected content entity.
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