School textbooks are a basic teaching material and students as well as teachers use them almost daily. An important part of mathematical textbooks are the exercise tasks that the students are supposed to work out during the learning process. Since exercise tasks have a significant impact on students' mathematical thinking, it is essential that textbooks contain tasks of various types. In the diploma thesis we consider first the structure of mathematical textbooks in general and the role of mathematical textbooks in the learning process. The main part of the thesis consists of an analysis of the geometry tasks in selected textbooks and the comparison of the textbooks with regard to the analysed structure of the tasks. In the analysis we used the method of the Croatian author Glasnović Gracin. We analysed the geometric tasks in two printed mathematical textbooks for the 7th grade of Slovenian elementary school. The tasks were analyzed according to the following characteristics: the required activity, the complexity level, the form of the required answer, and the context features. According to these characteristics we compared two Slovenian textbooks, and we also compared the characteristics of Slovenian textbooks with those of two Croatian textbooks, which were analysed by Glasnović Gracin.
We have found that tasks from analysed textbooks do not stimulate students to activate higher levels of cognitive thinking. Several tasks encourage the student to think and to relate two or more concepts or procedures, but this is done on a rather simple level. The tasks mostly require standard constructions and the calculation of missing data. To a large extent, tasks require a closed answer. The context of the vast majority of tasks is mathematical, and not related to the real world. Comparing Slovenian and Croatian textbooks, we find some differences in activity stimulated by the task and the level of cognitive complexity. In the other studied parameters, the tasks in the Slovenian and Croatian textbooks examined did not differ significantly.
|