Cognitive Demand of Mathematics Tasks in Nepali Middle School Mathematics Textbooks

We investigated the cognitive demand of the exercise problems that middle school students from Nepal are expected to complete. The middle school (grades 6, 7, and 8) mathematics textbooks examined in this study were published and distributed by the government of Nepal. Our data set consisted of textbooks that are currently in use in public schools of Nepal and used by majority of the middle school students in Nepal. Using the mathematical tasks framework to analyze the data, we found more than 92% tasks are of lower cognitive demands, and most tasks are at the level of procedures without connections. We also observed that the majority (more than 75%) of exercise problems are supplemented with similar worked examples. We discuss implications and suggest future studies.