Problem Analysis in Turkish and Singapore Mathematics Textbooks: Division of Fraction


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Onder Butuner S. Ö.

PAMUKKALE UNIVERSITESI EGITIM FAKULTESI DERGISI-PAMUKKALE UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF EDUCATION, sa.47, ss.370-394, 2019 (ESCI) identifier

Özet

In this study, Turkish and Singapore mathematics textbooks were compared in terms of the problems included in the subject of division of fractions. The problems in textbooks were categorized in terms of the number of steps, type of answer, context and cognitive expectation characteristics. The analyses were conducted by two different researchers, and the Cohen Kappa agreement index between the researchers was found between 0.98-1.00 for each category. According to the findings, the Singapore book has more steps and more problems requiring explanation-solution compared to the Turkish books. All problems related to dividing fractions in both countries' books contain sufficient data. The number of daily life problems in the textbooks is small. In addition, it was determined that the Singapore textbook was richer than the Turkish books in terms of problems expressed in a combined form. In the Turkish books, there are few problems in the category of mathematical reasoning and representation compared to the Singapore book, and there is no problem in the Turkish books in the category of conceptual knowledge. The findings can be considered as one of the reasons why Singaporean students perform better than Turkish students in terms of number content domain in international exams. In future studies, it can be investigated what kind of problems mathematics teachers use in their lessons.