Education

Textbooks play an important role in undergraduate mathematics courses and have the potential to impact student learning. However, there have been few studies that describe students' textbook use in detail. In this study, 1156 undergraduate students in introductory mathematics classes were surveyed, and asked to describe how they used their textbook. The results indicate that students tend to use examples, instead of the expository text, to build their mathematical understanding, which instructors may view as problematic. This way of using the textbook may be the result of the textbook structure itself, as well as students' beliefs about reading and the nature of mathematics. Although many instructors may not clearly convey how they want their students to use the textbook, students do report using it more productively when they believe they are asked to do so. This suggests that instructors should carefully choose text materials to promote mathematical reasoning, and actively encourage their students to read the text in a way that supports the development of this reasoning.

While most mathematics textbooks are written to help the reader develop an understanding of the mathematical content, our hypothesis is that many undergraduate students do not use textbooks in ways that help them gain this understanding. Many college mathematics teachers have anecdotal accounts of the ways students use textbooks but this has not been studied in detail. Our goal is to describe the ways undergraduate math students use their textbooks. In our pilot study, we administered a survey to students in 1st and 2nd year mathematics courses at three large universities and a liberal arts college. Participating students were enrolled in a math class, including college algebra, calculus, statistics, and math content courses for elementary teachers. The survey questions asked students to identify the parts of the textbook they use, the times they use them, and their goals in using them. For example, we found that 90% of students look at the examples in the book, and students in math...