Descriptive Analysis of a Sixth-Grade Turkish Science Text With Recommendations for Development of Future E-Resources for Multi-Touch Tablets

This study investigates a sixth-grade Turkish science for the integration of text and graphical representations, compares that analysis to a similar analysis of four U. S. Texts using the Graphical Analysis Protocol (GAP) (Slough, McTigue, Kim, & Jennings, 2010), and makes specific recommendations for the future development of e-learning resources for multi-touch tablets which are planned for implementation in Turkey. Preliminary analysis of the Turkish textbook indicates that the text is similar to the comparable U. S. texts with somewhat better integration of text and graphics and recommends for inclusion of more interactive graphical elements (e.g., hyperlinks, 3-D models, image maps, animations, videos, etc.) in future e-resources development. Advances in publishing technologies (Stern, Aprea, & Ebner, 2003; Trumbo, 1999) and the demand for increased visual content that is currently exploding on the World Wide Web (Leu, 2000) have dramatically altered textbooks; no longer does the text dominate the textbook. Current school science texts have morphed in format and now mimic the layout of webpages and science tradebooks with almost every page boasting an array of tables and textboxes, flow charts and photographs, and a myriad of other visual representations (Slough, McTigue, Kim, & Jennings, 2010). Although limited research has been conducted on the effectiveness of such visually complex texts, teachers report preferences for these high visual-content books (Freitas, 2007) to the traditionally formatted text. As textbooks are transitioning to include more graphical information, multi-touch tablets (MTT) and cloud computing open a new development window for the development of textbooks that champion the inclusion of more interactive graphical elements (e.g., hyperlinks, 3-D models, image maps, animations, videos, etc.) to fundamentally change the text accessibility (McTigue & Slough, 2010) for all science learners (Rupley & Slough, 2010). MTT are of particular interest because they have been reported to provide enriched interactions; new instructional approaches and models; interactive assessment and feedback (Roschell et al., 2007); increased engagement and improved classroom management through the maintenance of eye contact during instruction; recording of voice and video; easy sharing of data; use of multiple applications (Mock, 2004); cost savings verses traditional textbooks; ease of sharing/implementing supplemental material (Hulls, 2005); 3-D application for improved spatial learning; dynamic content; and speech to text and text to speech features for students with hearing impairments (Mitchell, 2007). In short, MTTs provide most of the advantages of a traditional computer with less of the limitations. This paper extends previous research by Slough, McTigue, Kim, & Jennings (2010) that investigated four sixth grade science texts adopted by the state of Texas, USA by investigating a comparable text from Turkey (Turkish Ministry of National Education, 2010) and making recommendation for future development of e-resources that take advantage of MTT and cloud computing to provide rich educational products for teaching and learning science. Slough et al. (2010) reported that the least analytic forms of graphics dominated with photographs accounted for almost half of the graphics and when combined with naturalistic drawings, stylized drawings, and tables accounting for more than two-thirds of the observed graphics; exactly one-third of the graphics were decorative; 87.7% were static representations; 38.2% were not spatially connected to representative text; 38.1% weren’t indexically referenced; and 18.5% did not have captions. Life and Earth sciences were more likely to include by representational styled graphics (i.e., photographs, naturalistic and stylized drawings) which represented actual objects such as a plant or animal that seemed to be decorative and unconnected to the text. There was a conspicuous absence of maps, scale diagrams, or graphics that showed change over time in the Earth Sciences. Observable differences by publishers indicated that publishers who included large percentages of decorative photographs were less likely to connect them to the text. Positives noted were that all graphic forms were represented; approximately one-third of the graphics were of the more analytic forms; two-thirds served a specific cognitive purpose; some examples of systems thinking were observed (12.3%); 61.8% were well connected to the referent text; 61.9% were indexically referenced; 42.6% of the graphics provided a description or engaged the reader; and publishers were clearly devoting significant resources to including graphical elements to text.