Who in a university, decides what kind of textbook the course should use?

Question

My advanced calculus textbook is horrible. It is very poorly explained without any examples at all, 99% of the time. The exercises have no connection whatsoever to what the chapter explains.

I can find way better books than this in advanced calculus on amazon.com and they're far more helpful.

I do not know why my university almost always prefers textbooks by Pearson, Prentice Hall for science and technology courses when there is so much variety out there.

I'm moving with the class average grade (which is D so far). You have scores like 61 or 67 as average on exams, which does not even qualify to be C grade.

I feel whoever the person to decide what of kind of book to be used is doing a horrible job and has little or no knowledge at all of the course.

to the response of the second answerer -- "if other helpful books are found, why are you still struggling"

If it wasn't for other books, i would be failing with grade of F. Everyone else in the class uses alternate books to.

The course is hard no doubt, but if you are to use the class textbook you'd have around 35 to 40% average instead of 64 to 65% average.

Also i would like to say that I got A grades in all my previous calculus courses and i also did calculus in high school and got straight A's (it is university course, doing in high school proves that you are advanced for your age and group). I have taken it 7 times before from 1994 to present and this is my 8th time.

7 times i got A grades. But the 8th attempt everything got complicated, because this is a proof oriented course unlike calculation courses of the past.

So i have to respectfully disagree with the second answerer "maybe you are not smart"

I have one more semester to go before i get my bachelor's degree in math, and if i wasn't smart as second answerer claims, what would be the chances of making this far?

Answer 1

Usually it is the prof who picks the text ... after that look to division chairs and on up the line. It is said elsewhere here that many times deals are made with publishers ... that is probably where the problem "lies" ... personally I would talk to the prof ... if everybody is having the same kinds of problems then it would seem that the prof would know about it and want to do something to help.

In the end it may be too late to help as this semester is coming to a close very soon ... it is though, the perfect time to start making noise about it ... very loudly too. That way when you retake the course they might have a decent text to teach it.

It's kind of ironic you mention Pearson,Prentice Hall ... I pulled out my old Calc 1 & 2 books from back in the late 90s and guess who they were done by ... yep, Pearson, Prentice Hall ...

Answer 2

First of all, understand that there have been so many mergers and acquisitions in the publishing industry that while there used to be a lot of choice, in many cases, you are lucky to find one or two texts on a subject matter these days. My colleagues and I are extremely frustrated by the lack of options out there for most of the things that we teach. There are now only three major providers of texts in my field, with a few others which try to have an impact, but which usually are poor at follow-through and which rarely offer the "packages" offered by the major companies.

Secondly, there are generally two ways in which textbooks are chosen. For courses taught by a number of different faculty members, the book might be chosen by committee. That is often the case for "intro" courses. In other cases, generally the individual instructor picks the text. The only exception I've seen is where the instructor is listed as "staff" - in other words, they don't find a part-time teacher until the last minute - and then usually it is the department chair who places the order, generally based upon what was used the last time the course was taught. I've never heard of a situation in which "the university" prefers certain texts. If it seems that way, it may be that the rep for one company is more attentive than those for the other companies. At our school, we had one rep for years who was the only one who regularly met with faculty. The others sent promotional materials, but never talked to us. When we had a problem with a text, we knew we could count on that one rep to handle it, but most of the others were pretty pathetic.

Answer 3

Have you express your feelings to the instructor and the department/division chair?

Textbook selection starts with the faculty...either a single faculty member who is teaching the course...or a group of faculty if a number of them teach the same course number.

Some schools have a process by which the text selected by the faculty must them be approved by a committee. But different schools have different processes.

Some campuses have a process called "shared governance" which strives to include all campus communities in the process of running (governing) the school. If your college has this, you should explore the issue with the student representatives involved in shared governance.

In the end, the quality of your education rests primarily with you and not with the school, instructor or textbook. If you have found books that work better for you, there is nothing stopping you from using them to study and apply the learning to your current course.

Hope this helps. Best wishes.

Answer 4

Ah, but the publishers make deals with the schools and there are perks involved.

I'm curious though, you said you found other books that are more helpful, then why are you still getting D's? That makes no sense. If the information and concepts are the same, then you should be able to pass the tests and assignments regardless of which book you used. Maybe you're just not smart enough.

Besides, harder upper year classes are meant to weed out the hopeful graduate school candidates from those who are actually capable of advanced work, or at least that is my suspicion.

Answer 5

Usually the instructor decides which book he/she will teach from. In some cases, though, the Department may be responsible for deciding the text.

Sometimes the publishers give discounts to schools in order to entice them to order books from them. In my experience, Pearson is widely used at my school...but they have been very good textbooks.

Answer 6

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