A textbook is the main teaching material for achieving educational goals and knowledge standards that are defined in the curriculum. A quality textbook is one of the factors of successful teaching. This is one of the key reasons why it is so important that the textbooks used for teaching are of high quality. Because publishing houses offer many textbooks, it is mostly up to the teacher to choose a quality textbook. To make this decision teachers need guidelines that help them choose a quality textbook. With the right choice, they can also help the growth of the profession and the quality of teaching practice. This is also true for the field of teaching musical art. That is why it is important that we study the need for reform and modernisation of textbook materials and the formation of new materials. In the field of musical art, we study textbook materials based on general and musical art-specific criteria. They are connected with the representation of musical activities, curriculum, the use of picture records, graphic records and symbolic records, adequacy of explanations of musical expressions for students, and adequacy of musical vocabulary.
In my master thesis, I analysed 15 official musical art textbooks for the grade level students of primary school, based on the general and musical art-specific criteria. Firstly, I analysed all the textbooks by myself, and then some randomly chosen grade level teachers analysed them by the same criteria. Based on my findings I have designed guidelines for further development of textbook materials for musical art lessons and guidelines that can help teachers choose a quality textbook.
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