This study investigated the influence of textbooks on instruction as well as instructor's perceptions of the textbook used for instruction and their personal preferences. In the qualitative part of a mixed-methods study, the primary researcher developed and conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 chemistry instructors. They tended to follow the sequence of chapters as established by the textbook, while not using end-of-chapter problems for any kind of assessment or study activity, and they expressed low levels of satisfaction with their textbook because it was not their personal choice. In the quantitative part, a survey was developed to further explore instructors' mental models. The survey queried instructors' choice of the textbook, their perceptions of its graphical and narrative parts, asks for frequency of actions performed by an instructor in a classroom. The survey was randomly disseminated among instructors from several distinctive types of institutions across the US. For these types, differences were found among their classroom practices as well as their different perceptions of various textbook features.

Influence of instructors mental models of chemistry textbooks on general chemistry instruction

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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