Comparison of Turkey and Singapore secondary school mathematics textbooks in terms of mathematical connecton skill

In our country, students in the formal education system continue their education with textbooks distributed free of charge in schools by the Ministry of National Education. Therefore, textbooks are one of the most important elements of our education system. Mathematical connection skill is one of the important skills targeted to be acquired by students in our mathematics curriculum. In this study, it was aimed to compare the activities in Turkey and Singapore secondary school mathematics textbooks in terms of mathematical connection skill. Document analysis method, one of the qualitative research methods, was used in the study. In this context, 179 activities in a total of seven textbooks were analysed: three secondary school mathematics textbooks from Turkey, which are distributed free of charge by the Ministry of National Education at the 5th, 6th and 7th grade levels, and four textbooks from Singapore, which are approved by the Ministry of National Education and widely used in the country. In the analysis process, the analysis framework developed by the researcher based on previous studies was used. According to the results obtained from the research, activities in the Turkish textbooks, connection with real life was 30.6%, connection between different representations of the concept was 27.5%, connection between concepts was 21.4% and connection with different disciplines was 1%; activities in the Singapore textbooks, connection with real life was 25.9%, connection between different representations of the concept was 35.8%, connection between concepts was 16% and connection with different disciplines was 2%. The rate of activities without making connection was 19.3% in Turkey and 19.7% in Singapore. According to these results, while Turkey and Singapore mathematics textbooks differ in terms of the most common type of connection, they are similar in terms of the proportion of activities that do not have any connection and the proportion of activities that have very little connection with different disciplines. In the light of these results, it is recommended that the end-of-chapter assessment questions, exercises and solved examples in the textbooks should be analysed in the context of mathematical connection. In the literature, there is no study examining the effect of assessment and evaluation methods (classical-multiple choice), one of the most important elements of the education and training system, on mathematical connection skills. It is recommended to carry out studies in this field.