MCLA Blog

Posted for Rob Harris

Textbook selection is one of the most challenging decisions a faculty member must make prior to beginning a class. As faculty members, our email inboxes are flooded with notes from publishers telling us about the latest editions of books, and our book shelves become stuffed with evaluation copies of textbooks. Given the large number of textbooks available, especially in the sciences, how does a faculty member choose a text? A good textbook is one that the students will actually read and use to assist them in learning the material covered in class. A bad textbook is one where the student hopes they can keep in the wrapper until the end of the semester so they can sell it back and get the most money for.

In this session, we discussed the issues that we encounter regarding textbooks. One of the things that I discovered was that the humanities tend to select many books over the course of the semester, so a “poor” book choice is not the end of the world. This is in contrast to a science class such as organic chemistry, where there is normally one text used. If this one book is “bad”, the entire course can suffer. Another area discussed was the selection of texts for science classes for non-majors. Here it is critical that the book selected will keep the non-majors interested in the course. The faculty member must “return to the world of being an undergraduate” when evaluating a text because what is obvious to the faculty member (with 10 years of training in the subject) is not so obvious to the non-science major filling the core requirement.

We also discussed a paper from Texas A&M regarding a method for textbook adoption. (Chatman, S.P.; Goetze, E. T. Journal of Psychology 1985 150 – 152). The paper describes a method to effectively review a large number of introductory texts. Part of the evaluation process discussed the readability index of textbooks, and a discussion of Flesch-Kincaid readability test and Gunning Fog index was also included.

Tom Statler, Textbook Insanity

Chapman and Goetze, Improving Textbook Selection

Wikipedia entry for the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test