The book has a twofold goal: to give an overview of the research in the area of textbook and to supply textbook authors and editors with the concrete suggestions for composing an effective textbook. The conclusions and suggestions are based on an overview of more than 500 sources of literature and many experimental studies of the author.
The first part of the book investigates the methods for textbook evaluation: experiments, expert opinions, and textbook analysis. Special attention is given to the analysis of textbook feasibility before printing and to the exact criteria of...

Students valued academic success, politeness, and honesty but not so much health and tolerance. Teenagers gave high ranks to knowledge, friends, and honesty and lower ranks to a high position in society and wealth. The students self-evaluations were in good correlation with PISA 2006 results. Positive experiences of upbringing were related to a lower risk of using intoxicants in Estonia, Finland and Russia. Teenagers behaviour was assessed as relatively wilder but also more honest than adults behaviour. A review of bullying revealed the relationship between educational practice and science....

The studies in this volume explore a number of issues in education today. One paper reveals what actually motivates teachers to develop their career, another, how to teach primary teachers to talk about visual art. Children s artworks were explored in one article to see how they relate to their adjustment to school. In another, a case study was successful in developing reasoning in primary school students. The measurement of mathematics achievement revealed no difference between Estonian speaking and Russian speaking schools. Performance-related goals were shown in another article to be...

The papers in this collection contribute to our understanding of several aspects of lifelong learning. Two papers highlight the characteristics of reflection among teachers including self-evaluation and blogging. Two other papers study cooperation in lifelong learning one, the impact of communities on professional learning among university lecturers, and the other, teacher-principal-parent partnerships in early childhood education. Universities offer a variety of courses and one paper analyses the impact on students of a course in educational psychology.
The experience of dilemmas in...

Several topics in contemporary educational research in Estonia have been covered in this collection. The professional identities of vocational teachers have been studied in relation to their new professional roles. Important differences in lesson planning have been found between novice and experienced teachers. A longitudinal study of the development of language competence revealed that it is important to provide students with tasks suited to their cognitive level. The metacognitive learning strategy summarizing alone explained 33% of the variation in the reading results of the 2009...