Variation i kognitiva utmaningar : En studie om hur kognitiva förmågor tränas i läroböcker i engelska

Sammanfattning: The aim of this study is to examine exercises in English textbooks and how they vary in terms of what cognitive ability they are intended to train. By using Bloom’s revised taxonomy as a framework, we evaluate how the exercises can be used to train the students’ cognitive abilities. In this study, I ask how many of each cognitive ability are being trained when using the chosen English textbooks. According to the results, most of the exercises in the analyzed books help to practice cognitive abilities of a relatively low complexity, such as remember and understand. More complex cognitive abilities such as apply and analyze are rare in comparison and the most complex cognitive abilities, evaluate and create, are nonexistent. This result is similar to other research where Bloom’s taxonomy has been used to classify textbook exercises. Other research has shown that the exercises mostly practice the lower cognitive abilities as well. While there are likely many reasons for this, one reason could be that the textbook authors don’t need to include exercises of higher cognitive complexity because there are no demands for it, according to the Swedish National Agency for Education’s regulatory documents. That includes both older and newer versions of those documents.