A Comparison of Turkish and Singaporean Textbooks in Relation to the Instructional Content on Mental Computation in Arithmetic Operations

Abstract

This study aims to reveal how Turkish and Singaporean textbooks introduce the topic of mental computation in arithmetic operations, what the instructional process is like and what mental computation strategies are included. Three Turkish textbooks were compared against six Singaporean books, My Pals Are Here and Targeting Mathematics. The analyses showed that the Singaporean book entitled My Pals Are Here had the most diverse strategies in the mental computation of arithmetic operations. While the Turkish book TR1 and the Singaporean book TAR introduced the topics of mental addition and subtraction in grade 3 with strategy training, the Turkish book TR2 and the Singaporean book MP introduced the same topics in grade 3 with a contextual problem, and the students were asked to solve the problems by inventing different strategies. In Singaporean books, mental multiplication was taught with the strategies N10, N10C and 10^n, and mental division with N10 and 10^n. The Turkish book TR3 introduced the   rule on mentally dividing and multiplying a number with the exponents of 10, and did not mention strategies such as N10 or N10C. Another outcome of the study was that All textbooks expect students to use different strategies when mentally computing arithmetic operations. However, they do not contain any content to encourage students to identify the best strategy among those that they have invented for mental computations or discuss it with their friends. Overall, Singaporean books may be said to offer students more learning opportunities in the mental computation of arithmetic operations.