The Changing Role of Textbooks in Primary Education in the Digital Era - What Can We Learn from Reading Research?

Oct 15, 2026

Textbooks have functioned as the primary teaching tool since the 19th century, embedding subject knowledge shaped by societal expectations for elementary learning. Research has examined how textbook content evolves, but far less work has addressed how changes in reading substrates and textbook design affect learning and comprehension. This study reviews related research and PISA 2021 results, drawing five conclusions for future textbook research, including that screens can be worse than printed text for some reading types, while interactivity and dynamic design require coherent design to improve performance and higher-level thinking.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages17

Reading Time43 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Terminological note

Background: Changing textbook research focus

Study approach and aims

Deep reading and critical thinking framework

doi: 10.26529/cepsj.1290 The Changing Role of Textbooks in Primary Education in the Digital Era: What Can We Learn from Reading Research? Miha Kovač1 and Alenka Kepic Mohar*2 • Textbooks have been the primary teaching tool since the 19th century. By their nature, they contained a comprehensive compilation of the content of a particular subject with the intention of explaining it; this knowledge, in turn, was usually filtered to conform to a particular society’s expectations of elementary knowledge about the natural and social environments. There has been a great deal of research on how the content of textbooks has changed in line with changing values in different societies and over different periods. However, little research has been done on how textbook reading substrates and design have changed and how these changes have affected learning and comprehension: studies that systematically examined the effects of different reading substrates and different layouts on reading and learning comprehension did not appear until the late 20th century and early 21st century. We examine such studies and PISA 2021 results to draw five conclusions for future textbook research. These conclusions indicate that screens are worse than printed texts for some types of reading, while interactivity and dynamic design are not values per se but require coherent design to improve reading performance and higher-level thinking skills. Keywords: textbook, educational publishing, reading, audio reading, reading substrate 1 Department of Library and Information Science and Book Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. 2 *Corresponding Author. Mladinska knjiga Publishing House, Slovenia; [Alenka.KepicMohar@mladinska-knjiga.si](Alenka.KepicMohar@mladinska-knjiga.si). 12 the changing role of textbooks in primary education in the digital era Spreminjajoča se vloga učbenikov v osnovnošolskemizobraževanju v digitalni dobi: česa se lahko naučimo spomočjo raziskav branja Miha Kovač in Alenka Kepic Mohar • Učbeniki so od 19. stoletja osnovno učno sredstvo. Po svoji naravi sovsebovali celovit povzetek vsebine določenega predmeta z namenom, da bi jo razložili; to znanje pa je bilo običajno filtrirano tako, da je ustrezalo pričakovanjem določene družbe glede osnovnega znanja o naravnemin družbenem okolju. Veliko je bilo raziskav o tem, kako se je vsebinaučbenikov spreminjala skladno s spreminjajočimi se vrednotami v različnih družbah in v različnih časovnih obdobjih. Malo pa je bilo raziskav o tem, kako so se spreminjale bralne podlage in oblika učbenikov ter kako so te spremembe vplivale na učenje in razumevanje. Študije, kiso sistematično preučevale učinke različnih bralnih podlag in različnihoblik na branje in učno razumevanje, so se sistematično pojavile šelekonec 20. stoletja in v začetku 21. stoletja. Preučili smo več takšnih študijin rezultate raziskave PISA 2021 ter oblikovali pet sklepov za prihodnje raziskave učbenikov. Ti kažejo, da so zasloni pri nekaterih vrstah branja slabši od tiskanih besedil, medtem ko interaktivnost in dinamična zasnova nista vrednoti sami po sebi, ampak za izboljšanje bralne uspešnosti in spretnosti mišljenja na višji ravni zahtevata skladno zasnovo. Ključne besede: učbenik, izobraževalno založništvo, branje, zvočno branje, bralna podlaga Introduction For a long time, textbook research was primarily concerned with the content of textbooks and their embeddedness in cultural contexts (for more on this, see Fuchs & Bock, 2018) . This paper examines textbooks from a different perspective: it focuses on the changing materiality and design of textbooks and asks what technological, social, didactic, and economic forces were behind these changes, whether changes in design and textbook substrates affected learning and reading processes, and whether these changes correlate with students’ abilities to higher levels of reading such as deep reading. In the context of this paper, we see deep reading as

FAQs

What does the paper say is the traditional focus of textbook research?

For a long time, textbook research focused mainly on the content of textbooks and how it is embedded in cultural contexts.

What new perspective does this paper take?

The paper examines textbooks through their changing materiality and design, asking what technological, social, didactic, and economic forces drove these changes and how they affect reading and learning processes.

What conclusions are drawn from reviewing studies and PISA 2021 results?

The paper presents five conclusions, including that screens are worse than printed texts for some types of reading, and that interactivity and dynamic design are not benefits by themselves unless supported by coherent design.

Oct 15, 2026

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