La huella del alumno en los manuales como evidencia de su uso, interpretación, valoraciones y valor del medio (patrimonio)

Abstract

The Student's Trace At Textbooks As Evidence Of Its Use, Interpretation, Valuation And Value Of The Setting (Heritage) Summary This Doctoral Thesis takes part on a research whose purpose is to reestablish the process of teaching and learning History of Spain at the last year of high school (baccalaureat). Specifically, it focuses its research on the use of the history book inside and outside the classroom. It is conducted through: the traces left by students in their books (analyzing contents) and describing and interpreting them (by means of the results of an open questionnaire with assessment scales done by the students). This study was carried out on an exploratory sample of 95 respondents, 52 High Schools and 19 Municipalities of the Autonomous Community of the Region of Murcia. The data corresponds to the 2012-2013 courses (focused on books) and 2013-2014 (focused on some dimensions of teaching and learning). The work and research carried out by MANES (Interuniversity Research Centre dedicated to the historical study of books), CEME (Centre of Studies about Educational Memory, University of Murcia), IARTEM (International Association for Research on Textbooks and Educational Media) and German Institute Georg Eckert (Focused on multidisciplinary research on textbooks). They constitute the general reference of this thesis. Additionally, the studies of Sikorova (2011) and Borries, Körber and Meyer-Hamme (2006), both on the use of textbooks and Barton (2010) on the different learning contexts, they are the studies in which more directly this research has been based on. Regarding the results, three areas could be pointed out as the most significant: the singular and common aspects of the involvement, the contextualization of the book in the reality in which it has been researched and, finally, the book usage and its relationship with other information sources. The descriptions of the participants make of each narration a singular fact lived that helps to understand on a better way the process of teaching and learning. Furthermore, contextualization (the school centre, the classroom and the teacher), the teaching process (where 70% of practices are based on explanation), the link with the present (in which 90% of the descriptions affirm positively and exemplify that practice) and the relationship with the environment (scarcely developed), determine the context without which it would be difficult to understand the roles and functions of the books. The textbook in the classroom (29 of 46 participants) is linked to other two sources of information: notes (all participants) and use Internet (11 students). These data present a reality which opens to questions that should be explored. If we focus on textbooks, we could identify three different uses: as a complement to the notes provided by the teacher, as a reference to the notes made by the student and the whole book (workbook?). This diversity brings along some regularities structured around the content (underlined / highlighted, explanations/definitions, expansions and schemes/summaries) and management (the structure of study, exams -related to assessments and the dates- and A-Levels). All these traces are perfectly and regularly placed in the pages of the textbooks. Finally, we might point out how the different resources of the book (text, images, maps, etc.) are used at home and in the classroom, outlining the author's text as central concept. With regards to proposals for future research, we could point out: the use of notes and Internet, the use of the present and the heritage of teaching and the preservation of information at educational memory centers.