Changes in Equality Problem Types Across Four Decades in Four Second and Sixth Grade Textbook Series

Textbooks can serve as artifacts that provide insights into how content was presented historically. In this study, we examined the equal sign and relational equality in four widely adopted textbooks (Grades 2 and 6) over a longitudinal period that spanned four decades from 1970-2010 (where possible). The textbooks (N = 29) were coded page by page using 11 categories. While the results of our study show that textbooks have made progress over the years towards including multiple contexts for the equal sign, there is still a need for inclusion of a greater variety of problem tasks to improve students’ understanding of the equal sign. There were few differences between modern and longstanding textbooks examined in this study. The most dramatic difference in Grade 2 textbooks was the gradual reduction of treating expressions as equations in Holt, Scott Foresman (SF), and the University of Chicago School Mathematics Program. The SF textbook in both grades 2 and 6 showed the greatest improvement in the odds for students to see items conducive to understanding the equal sign over time. Across both grade levels, all the textbooks had a greater percentage of items conducive to understanding the equal sign as compared to Saxon.

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