DIFFERENCES IN GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE CONTENTS OF NATURAL SCIENCES IN REGULAR TEXTBOOKS AND TEXTBOOKS FOR STUDENTS WITH SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS IN THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA

Abstract

The most important source of knowledge in primary school teaching is the textbook. This research aimed to determine the differences in graphic illustrations in the contents of natural sciences in a regular textbook and a textbook for children with special educational needs in the Republic of Serbia. As the number of subjects that deal with the contents of natural sciences for children with special educational needs is small, as well as the number of schools that implement this type of teaching, physics is taken as a subject, because the number of common topics is quite similar. The research aim was to analyze illustrations in selected physics textbooks for the 6th grade of primary education, by the criteria for dividing illustrations by types, for determining abstractness and relative representation of illustrations. In addition, a supplementary classification of illustrations was applied. The obtained results indicate that the number of illustrations concerning the number of words is higher in textbooks for children with special educational needs, as well as that the most represented are illustrations from everyday life and greater abstraction compared to regular textbooks. Since the physics textbook for children with disabilities is quite old, these results can be examined in practice among teachers and help future textbook authors to write the best quality textbook taking into account the needs of teachers and children with special educational needs. Keywords: image analysis, teaching physics, type of illustrations, special educational needs