What Teachers do when the Textbook is Tough: Students Speak Out

Abstract

The primary purpose of this study was to examine middle and high school students' views of instructional practices teachers may use to facilitate reading of difficult textbooks. One thousand eight hundred nineteen students (776 middle school and 1,043 high school) completed the Student Textbook Adaptation Evaluation Instrument (STAEI). The STAEI consists of a list of 33 textbook adaptations for students to rate in terms of their preference and perceptions of teacher use of the adaptations. A secondary purpose of the study was to compare lower and higher achieving students' responses on the STAEI. To address this purpose, a subset of the initial cohort of students (120 lower achieving and 120 higher achieving) was selected. Results indicate a difference between students' perceptions of the desirability of textbook adaptations (high) and their perceptions of the frequency of use of these adaptations in the classroom (low). Students do not feel they are being exposed to the types of instructional adaptations they need. This is particularly true among high school students and higher achieving students. Discussion focuses on the disparity between student preferences and prevailing practices in secondary school classrooms, as well as the role of students' perceptions in teacher decision making.