PDF (Whole Thesis) - USQ ePrints - University of Southern ...

o Selecting textbooks across multiple years ensures that a fuller picture of the
era is gained, rather than only looking at one or two years.
• Publisher and location;
o Textbooks published by Queensland based publishers are more likely to have
been used extensively by Queensland schools, particularly as education in
Australia is state based.
• Number of copies;
o This refers to the number of copies collected for this research. Multiple copies
(from different sources) of the same textbook is one indicator of widespread
use of the textbook.
• Where copies were sourced from;
o This is for interest and record keeping purposes, rather than part of the
selection process.
• School age group;
o To ensure a representative sample of textbooks from across year levels are
selected for each era.
• Department mandated (Y/N);
o Textbooks that are department mandated, such as School Readers and social
studies textbooks, were used in most, if not all, Queensland government
schools.
• Written for syllabus or on request of Department (Y/N);
o Those textbooks written specifically to fit a particular syllabus, or on request
of the Department, are clearly seen to be preferable to those that were not, due
to their widespread use and translation of official documents to classroom
practice.
• Textbook covers broad area of studies (Y/N);
o Textbooks that cover a broad area of study are more likely to be used by more
schools than one-issue textbooks; therefore these textbooks are preferred. Oneissue
textbooks are more likely to be used for individual student research
projects and housed in school libraries, rather than frequent classroom use.
• Textbook written by Queensland authors (Y/N);
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