Developing an Instrument to Analyze the Quality of the Secondary Level Mathematics Textbooks to Promote Bilingual Education in Sri Lanka

Bilingual Education (BE) was introduced to Sri Lankan education system in 2001. BE refers to an educational programme in which both native language and a second language are taught as subject matter and used as media of instruction while teaching non language subjects. The research conducted by the National Institute of Education (NIE) reveals the need of scientifically designed text books to promote BE in Sri Lanka, because they are the only resource for most of the Sri Lankan bilingual learners (74.4%) (NIE, 2007). Therefore, a scientifically designed instrument to analyze the quality of text books prepared for bilingual learners is utmost important. However, there is a paucity of knowledge in this area. The present research attempts to develop an instrument to assess the quality of the secondary level mathematics text books for bilingual learners. Do Coyle?s 4C model, (2010) (Content, Communication, Cognition and Culture) was selected as the suitable theoretical framework for this purpose. The four main components of the model were used to identify the indicators of the quality in addition to some other research findings. Draft items which were prepared as indicators were reviewed by bilingual education experts (5), mathematics educators (4) and curricular developers (5) and experienced mathematics teachers (5). Fuzzy Delphi technique was employed to establish the consensus among experts regarding these indicators. The instrument will be useful for researchers, text book writers and educational managers in the field of BE.