Evaluation of Grade Nine Geography Textbook Vis-à-vis the Key Criteria of Problem Solving Skill Development

This study examined the extent to which grade nine Geography textbook promotes the development of secondary school students' problem solving skill. The study utilised a framework suggested in the related literature of problem solving for preparing a coding scheme to analyse the textbook. Based on the framework, an overall picture of the representation of problem solving strategies in the textbook was confirmed. The result indicated that grade nine Geography textbook was not sufficient to support students’ problem solving skill development. Particularly, the capacity of the textbook in promoting higher order thinking skills using solving multistep and real life problems, the use of graphic organisers, the inclusion of metacognitive strategies and the incorporation of variety of heuristics were limited. Thus, it needs to consider the criteria suggested in the literature of problem solving skill development while revising the textbook.