Expectations on Physics Textbooks

Abstract

In the physics classroom and outside, physics textbooks are important for teaching and learning physics. Regarding the content and form of physics textbooks, different people have different expectations. However, there is no systematic overview of expectations held by these people, ranging from curriculum-makers, publishers and authors to teachers, students, and education researchers. Therefore, this chapter provides a literature review of research papers about physics textbook expectations. All relevant sections of these papers are analyzed with a system of deductive categories, and the results of the analysis are generalized in inductive categories. Regarding content, textbooks are expected to be course-matching, nature-of-science-oriented, competence-oriented, stereotype-free, curriculum-aligned, interdisciplinary, student-oriented, teacher-oriented, context-based, and error-free. Regarding form, textbooks are expected to be multi-representational, content-method-aligned, clearly laid-out, fulfilling external criteria, fully digital, and research-based. Regarding actions around the textbook, teachers are expected to choose a suitable textbook and encourage textbook use, students are expected to supplement the textbook and read it critically, and education researchers are expected to analyze textbooks and evaluate their effects on students’ learning. Overall, expectation holders are expected to interact more. The expectations stated in the papers are mostly normative or literature-based, but rarely empirical. Moreover, there is almost no relationship between the papers. Therefore, physics textbooks expectations research is not a research field of its own, yet. Creators and users of textbooks should learn from each other more so that the textbooks can be improved.