A Comparative Study On Series In Mathematics Textbooks Of Chinese,Japanese, Singapore And American Senior School

Since the middle of1990s, many countries have carried out large-scale reform. And at the same time, curriculum in China also have been reformed. So for Chinese basic education reform, Chinese educators want to learn some experience from the education reform movements in other countries and regions.This study choose high school mathematics textbooks from China, Japan, Singapore and the United States, and use the content analysis and the comparative method, carry on the quantitative evaluation and the qualitative analysis on the content of series of the four versions textbooks, from the content selection and arrangement, content expression, expectations for students. Through the research, we obtain the following conclusions:Firstly, the contents in the four countries are approximately the same. The common contents are sequence, arithmetic sequence, geometric sequence, mathematics induction and Fibonacci series. Compared to the other three textbooks, Chinese textbook doesn’t cover the content such as series, E and difference. Japanese textbook emphasizes the connection among the knowledge mostly in the four textbooks.Secondly, Chinese textbook is comparatively better on the unit structure than other three countries. American textbook focuses on readability and representation of the content, so American students can learn mathematics easily. Textbooks in four countries follow the same regularity to present concepts, and examples. Textbooks in Asian countries follow the same regularity to present principles, and textbook in U.S. doesn’t pay attention to the reasoning process of principles.Thirdly, textbooks in China and U.S. contain more types of teaching purpose than textbooks in Singapore and Japan. Questions in Japanese textbook contain least answer types in four textbooks. And although other three textbooks contain all five answer types, these three textbooks emphasize mostly calculation. Exercises in Chinese textbooks are more difficult than others in dimension of background of exercises, and Exercises in Singapore textbooks are more difficult than others in the rest dimension of exercises.Based on the research, we propose some opinions and suggestions following:add more content in order to build a bridge between high school mathematics and higher mathematics; use information technology appropriately, and explore the integration of information technology and mathematics courses; add some pictures and charts to make students understand concepts easier.