What criteria do instructors appear to use to evaluate a textbook

The purpose of this study was to find out what criteria teachers use to evaluate a textbook they were using and whether the criteria they use vary in terms of variables like age, sex, and length and types of ELT experience. The research also investigated the ways teachers use the textbook evaluation criteria which was suggested by the scholars and analysed this use in terms of variables like age, sex, and length and types of ELT experiences. The research was conducted at TOMER at Ankara University. The participants were 46 English teachers from the language centre, TOMER. Data were collected through two questionnaires. The first questionnaire consisted of eight open-ended questions and aimed to discover the teachers’ criteria for textbook evaluation. The second questionnaire consisted of 47 Likert type questions and aimed to find out the ways the teachers use the criteria suggested by scholars. Part one in each questionnaire collected demographic data, as the population for each questionnaire was different. The research questions of the study were as follows:

1. What criteria do instructors appear to use to evaluate a textbook in terms of physical appearance, organisation, content, tasks and activities and supporting resources?
2. Do the textbook evaluation criteria reported by teachers vary depending on their age, sex, length and types of ELT experience?
3. Does the use of criteria suggested by scholars vary depending on the teachers’ sex, age, length and types of ELT experience? The results of the study revealed the teachers’ criteria for textbook evaluation in the categories of the physical appearance, organisation, content, tasks and activities and supporting resources of the textbook. The categories derived from the literature. The results of the second research question which analysed the findings of the first questionnaire in terms of the variables of sex, age, length and types of ELT experience found that and the variables of sex and type of experience showed differences, but the others didn’t. The third research question analysed the results of the second questionnaire in terms of the variables of age, sex, and length and types of ELT experiences. All four variables showed differences in each of the major criteria group studied: physical appearance, content, tasks and activities, and supporting resources. The highest number of significant differences fall into length of experience. The study discovered many differences in the teachers’ perceptions of criteria in terms of variables, which become difficult to explain. So, the research recommends further research questions to be investigated.