Requirements in mathematics textbooks and in PISA assessment: Unterschied zwischen den Versionen

This research concerns the role of mathematics textbooks in mathematics education, mathematics textbook requirements and the requirements of PISA assessment in the field of mathematical literacy. The textbook and PISA requirements are further compared to the current curricular requirements in mathematics education in Croatia. The research showed that textbooks are used to a great extent in mathematics education in Croatia as well as in many other countries. Croatian teachers mainly use textbooks for lesson preparation while students use them for doing exercises and homework. The analysis of textbook exercises shows a predominance of intra-mathematical calculation requirements on the reproduction or simpler connections level. The exercises are mostly given in closed answer forms. These findings show the traditional features of mathematics education in Croatia. The obtained results mainly correspond to the curricular requirements as well as teachers’ beliefs about mathematics and teaching mathematics. Further, the analysis results show that PISA 2009 requirements differ from the textbook requirements to a great extent. Also, there are some differences between both textbook and PISA requirements and the official curricular requirements in Croatia. These differences are a possible explanation for the poor Croatian results in PISA assessment in the field of mathematical literacy.