Perception of the Layout of Study Texts by a Teacher

Abstract

The authors of textbooks should pay attention to how the\ncontent, the concept and as well as the layout of the textbook\nis perceived by readers - students. However it is necessary to\nknow how teachers evaluate the textbook because they determine\nthe trend how their students exploit the textbook. This article\nis a pilot study of the issues of perception and attention of\nlearning texts by the teachers of mathematics and physics of\nelementary and secondary schools. The research was conducted\nduring two workshops for teachers in November 2018. Within\nthese sessions, teachers presented their comments and\nsuggestions on various mathematical and physics teaching\nmaterials. Meeting participants were also subjected to\neye-tracking testing of different learning materials. The goal\nof this testing was to identify the attention and browsing very\ndifferently conceived texts. One of the key findings is that\nteachers themselves consider teaching materials with excess\ntext to be inappropriate. Also, the photographs or\nillustrations used must be designed in a modern style. For\nexample, black and white images are considered to be\ninappropriate. In broad consensus, these views are held by\nteachers of different generations. In most cases, male teachers\npaid more attention to individual materials - read more\nthoroughly the materials. Both genders in textbooks, for\nexample, do not pay attention to formulas. In the case of\nillustrations and pictures, the caption and its suitability\nwithin the theme are of particular interest. Overall, teachers\nare more focused on texts, with the emphasis on selecting /\nevaluating whether the text will be understood from the\nstudent s point of view. Teachers of younger and middle age,\nespecially males, consider electronic documents as the key\nfuture of learning materials. At the same time, they are very\nactively using them. Older teachers in these documents also see\nthe future, however, for their greater use, they are prevented\nby the lack of ICT knowledge.