Differences of Meaning Understanding among Teachers, Students, Parents, and Experts about Elementary Mathematics Textbooks

This study is to examine different views of teachers, students, parents and experts on existing mathematics textbook and ideas and alternatives for developing new textbooks. We interviewed deeply with 18 teachers, 18 students, 9 parents, and 4 experts and analyzed two analysis frame categories; Strengths and weaknesses of current textbooks and directions of mathematics textbooks that will be revised. We found that among teacher, student, parent and expert, there are some differences of meaning about mathematics textbooks, based on interview questions. The directions of new textbooks are as follows. First, 'the definitions of mathematics textbook concepts' shared and sympathized by teachers, students, parents, and experts should be considered in developing the textbooks. Second, the textbooks should be much usable in classrooms and be matched to the goals of mathematics subjects. Third, the contents and levels of difficulty of the textbooks should be based on the specific objectives and the analysis of curriculum and its contents. Fourth, understanding students should be presupposed as the external side of contents and the textbooks themselves should be associated with the image of joyful and fun mathematics. Fifth, the mathematics textbooks should reflect real daily life to their contents and be linked to other subjects.