Practicing mathematical modeling in upper secondary school : An analysis of the opportunities offered by Swedish and German textbooks

Abstract: This study aims at investigating what opportunities mathematics textbooks used in Swedish and German upper secondary schools offer to practice modeling within the topic of mathematical analysis. The main interest of the study lies in how the textbook content relates to the national curriculum goals regarding modeling, but the Swedish and German textbooks are also compared to each other. In order to achieve this objective, two textbooks, one from each country, were analyzed with respect to the amount and to the quality of available modeling tasks. In the content analysis, theory on modeling competence and realistic tasks were used. The results indicate that the two analyzed textbooks contain modeling tasks to approximately same extent. Both textbooks support exclusively intra-mathematical aspects of modeling, which is in line with the findings of previous studies. While the scope of mathematical modeling in the textbooks does not correspond to the general curriculum goals of realistic modeling, it covers partly (Sweden) or completely (Germany) the curriculum requirements for at least the lowest proficiency level of the modeling competence.