This study dealt with analysis of the textbook Master Class for 10th-grade students studying English at the 5-unit level. Content analysis was performed to determine to what extent the activities in the reading and listening units emphasize high and low-level thinking. The study attempted to answer the following questions: 1. To what extent are the cognitive levels of the activities in the Mastering Reading and Mastering Listening sections of the textbook Master Class varied? 2. To what extent do the activities in the two sections of reading and listening of Master Class textbook lead students towards levels that demand higher thinking such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation? Content analysis was conducted for the Mastering Reading and Mastering Listening sections of each unit. The activities that were defined as units for analysis were Wh-questions, Yes/No questions, Multiple Choice questions, Complete the sentence, and statement and request questions. The activities were collected, listed, and analyzed according to Bloom's Taxonomy: low order thinking skills: knowledge, comprehension, and application, and high order thinking skills: analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. The researchers then calculated the percentage and frequencies in which each level of cognition appeared for each separate unit and for all six units combined. The results indicated that the research tools used by the two researchers were valid and reliable. The results showed that 114 activities emphasized levels of cognition representing lower order thinking skills, while only 59 activities emphasized the three higher order thinking skills. The activities in the Master Class textbook place a great deal of emphasis upon comprehension, which is one of the lower order thinking skills. Additional studies are recommended in the area of content analysis of English instruction textbooks intended for various age levels in the Arab Sector. Such studies would shed light upon the role of textbooks in developing cognitive skills among Arab students.
Published in | Education Journal (Volume 3, Issue 2) |
DOI | 10.11648/j.edu.20140302.11 |
Page(s) | 24-38 |
Creative Commons |
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited. |
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2014. Published by Science Publishing Group |
EFL Textbooks, Bloom's Taxonomy, Content Analysis, Activities
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APA Style
Ibtihal Assaly, Abdul Kareem Igbaria. (2014). A Content Analysis of the Reading and Listening Activities in the EFL Textbook of Master Class. Education Journal, 3(2), 24-38. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.edu.20140302.11
ACS Style
Ibtihal Assaly; Abdul Kareem Igbaria. A Content Analysis of the Reading and Listening Activities in the EFL Textbook of Master Class. Educ. J. 2014, 3(2), 24-38. doi: 10.11648/j.edu.20140302.11
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TY - JOUR T1 - A Content Analysis of the Reading and Listening Activities in the EFL Textbook of Master Class AU - Ibtihal Assaly AU - Abdul Kareem Igbaria Y1 - 2014/01/20 PY - 2014 N1 - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.edu.20140302.11 DO - 10.11648/j.edu.20140302.11 T2 - Education Journal JF - Education Journal JO - Education Journal SP - 24 EP - 38 PB - Science Publishing Group SN - 2327-2619 UR - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.edu.20140302.11 AB - This study dealt with analysis of the textbook Master Class for 10th-grade students studying English at the 5-unit level. Content analysis was performed to determine to what extent the activities in the reading and listening units emphasize high and low-level thinking. The study attempted to answer the following questions: 1. To what extent are the cognitive levels of the activities in the Mastering Reading and Mastering Listening sections of the textbook Master Class varied? 2. To what extent do the activities in the two sections of reading and listening of Master Class textbook lead students towards levels that demand higher thinking such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation? Content analysis was conducted for the Mastering Reading and Mastering Listening sections of each unit. The activities that were defined as units for analysis were Wh-questions, Yes/No questions, Multiple Choice questions, Complete the sentence, and statement and request questions. The activities were collected, listed, and analyzed according to Bloom's Taxonomy: low order thinking skills: knowledge, comprehension, and application, and high order thinking skills: analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. The researchers then calculated the percentage and frequencies in which each level of cognition appeared for each separate unit and for all six units combined. The results indicated that the research tools used by the two researchers were valid and reliable. The results showed that 114 activities emphasized levels of cognition representing lower order thinking skills, while only 59 activities emphasized the three higher order thinking skills. The activities in the Master Class textbook place a great deal of emphasis upon comprehension, which is one of the lower order thinking skills. Additional studies are recommended in the area of content analysis of English instruction textbooks intended for various age levels in the Arab Sector. Such studies would shed light upon the role of textbooks in developing cognitive skills among Arab students. VL - 3 IS - 2 ER -