Textbooks have been modified together with the pedagogical theory, didactics, special didactics, psychology and similar theories that dominated in certain periods. Their covers, purpose, contents and interior order have altered during the years together with the different didactical elements in them. The empirical part of the master’s degree thesis deals with how the textbooks for natural science evolved, what has changed and what are the differences among them. General features of the textbooks have been analysed, such as format, the number of pages, the presence of the picture material and the ratio between the picture materials and texts, content of the table of contents, content of the foreword, etc. The research established whether the textbooks have been written in accordance with the recommendations concerning the developmental level of the pupils as in the text difficulty level, didactical elements and whether they are incontestable. Older textbooks differentiate from the newer ones on many levels, such as general characteristics, didactical elements and text difficulty levels. Some newer textbooks differentiate mainly in use of the didactical elements and text difficulty levels. This master’s degree thesis desires to establish how important it is for a textbook for the lower level of education to contain motivational elements, to be written in a language that is easy to understand, especially without complicated explanations, and to be faultless. The price, the textbook exterior and the number of pages, when choosing a textbook for the textbook fund, should not be the dominant factors. Those should be whether the textbook is written according to the didactical principles and whether it is irreproachable.
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