Lower-secondary school chemistry textbooks' didactic equipment

Abstract

Textbooks' fundamental influence on teaching is caused not only by their subject matter, but also by their didactic elaboration. Textbooks' individual functions are fulfilled through incorporated structural elements. Their pool is referred to as the didactic equipment of the textbook and represents qualities of the textbook through the options it gives to its users. The presented overview of lower-secondary chemistry textbooks' didactic equipment included 7 series of currently available textbooks. Results of the analysis serve not only as a possible guide for chemistry teachers' textbook selection, but they also provide insight into the current state to authors of textbooks and other didactic materials. Chemistry textbooks for lower-secondary schools achieve relatively high didactic equipment (75-92 %). The best equipped are the series of textbooks published after the current state curriculum introduction (by publishing houses Fraus and Nova Skola). Surprisingly, however, the most recently published textbooks by the Taktik publishing house showed the lowest didactic equipment.