Abstract:
This study intends to evaluate Interchange series (2005), which are still fundamental coursebooks in the EFL curriculum settings, in terms of learning objectives in Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy (2001) to see which levels of Bloom's Revised Taxonomy were more emphasized in these coursebooks. For this purpose, the contents ofInterchange textbooks were codified based on a coding schemedesigned by the researchers. The coding scheme was based on Bloom's Revised Taxonomy of learning objectives. The reliability of the coding scheme was also tested through two kinds of reliability analysis, namely, inter-coder and intra-coder reliability. The data were then analyzed and the frequencies and percentages of occurrence of different learning objectives were calculated. The results of the study revealed that Lower Order Thinking Skills (LOTS), the three low levels in Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy, were the most prevalent learning levels in these books. Moreover, a significant difference was also found among the coursebooks in their inclusion of different levels of learning objectives. The other result of this study was the total absence of metacognitive knowledge. All in all, it was found that Interchange series cannot make learners critical thinkers. As a final point, some implications for teachers and coursebook/textbook developers are recommended.
Machine summary:
com This study intends to evaluate Interchange series (2005), which are still fundamental coursebooks in the EFL curriculum settings, in terms of learning objectives in Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy (2001) to see which levels of Bloom's Revised Taxonomy were more emphasized in these coursebooks.
For example, Usova (1997), Aviles (2000), Granello (2000), Cross and Wills (2001), Granello (2001), Lipscomb (2001), Sultana (2001), Bastick (2002), Chan, Tsui, and Chan (2002), Chyung and Stepich (2003), Gegen (2006), Anthony (2007), Plack et al.
Several of these studies centered on developing criteria for materials evaluation and selection (See for instance, Suh (1970), Gracia and Armstrong (1979), Grosskopf (1981), Williams (1983), Kearsey and Turner (1999)Xu (2004) and Altman, Ericksen, and Pena-Shaff (2006)).
In the Iranian context, the following studies are conducted including Amerian (1987),Rastegar (1992), Kheibari (1999), Shahedi (2001), Ansary and Babaii (2002), Yarmohammadi (2002), Khormaei (2005),Marzban (2005), Darali (2007), Davatgarzadeh (2007), Iraji (2007), ZareAsl (2007), ZareMoayedi (2007), Razmjoo (2007) and Soozandehfar (2011).
3. 2 Materials The materials of the current study were four coursebooks of Interchange Third Edition series which were evaluated by the researchers on the basis of Bloom's revised taxonomy.
On the whole, A1 (Remember Factual Knowledge) which is the very first level of Bloom's Revised Taxonomy is found to be the most frequent code among the four coursebooks of Interchange series with a percentage of 31.
4. 3 Discussion As was shown in the findings in Table 2, in the very first book of Interchange series-Intro-A1 (remember factual knowledge), the lowest cell in Bloom's Revised Taxonomy is the most frequent code with the percentage of 43.