Analysis of examples and exercises in fractions in the primary school mathematics textbooks

The aim of this study is to analyze the associations, the classifications of the associations, the problem features, the representations and transitions involved in the examples and exercises related to the subject of fractions in primary school mathematics textbooks. This research is a qualitative research and document analysis method is used to analyze examples and exercises in primary school mathematics textbooks. In this study, examples and exercises which are involved in the primary school textbooks in the academic year of 2017-2018 prepared by the Ministry of Education commission and private publishing houses were analyzed. According to research findings; it is observed that the majority of the examples are associated with other topics in mathematics whereas only one third of the exercises has an association with the other subjects. Most of the problems consist of routine and closed-ended problems. It appears that the majority of the problems have enough data. It is seen that the problems requiring multiple steps in their solutions are given more place while the proportions of the problems requiring single-step and multiple steps are close. It is clearly seen that textual representations are mostly used in primary school mathematics textbooks. Model presentations have the second place in terms of their uses by textbooks, numerical and number line representations, the least preferred representations, have been used increasingly starting from the third grade. Key Words: Mathematics textbooks, example, exercise, problem, association, multiple representations