Textbook Authorship

Ethics of Authorship--Part 3

By neglect, I mean failing to care for the reader as a learner. Research from fields such as cognitive psychology and educational psychology have provided a lot of useful information about how people learn and about factors that affect individuals' motivation to learn, learning rate, mastery or expertise, and retention or memory. Many authors of college textbooks think that this information has nothing to do with them (if they think of it at all). These authors assume or believe that students are entirely responsible for their own learning. In both classroom teaching and textbook teaching, intentionally or out of ignorance, they may make no effort to apply learning theory or research-based knowledge about learning. To me, this a breach of ethics on a par with "First, do no harm."

In their quest to sell more textbooks, the large higher education publishing houses do attempt to apply learning theory and research. They know that the blockbuster textbooks are the ones that engage learners and facilitate students' success in the course of study. And they know these things cannot be taken for granted. The publisher's request for "pedagogy" and the chapter opening and chapter closing elements of the chapter apparatus are derived directly from learning theory. Boldfaced key terms, margin annotations, headings, content applications, interim review questions, pedagogical captions, summaries, and so on all address particular realities about the way humans think and acquire knowledge.

Some textbook authors refuse to supply these elements, thinking they are fluff or windowdressing or some kind of gamesmanship among publishers. Pedagogy can be done studpidly and wrong, of course. Everyone has seen textbooks cluttered with thematic "boxes" that clearly were outsourced and bear little connection with the narrative context. This is not the way it is supposed to be, but a perversion. Done right, those "boxes" can aid learning in significant ways, connecting content with the learner's direct experiences or aspirations, real-world examples or issues, or the latest news or developments. A textbook author's conscious aim should be to provide content and organization in a pedagogically responsible way that will enable readers to think clearly about new content and to acquire new knowledge swiftly, efficiently, and permanently. For this, some appreciation of learning theory is required along with a sincere consideration of textbook apparatus and pedagogy.

My posts on the ethics of authorship have focused on 3 negative factors: (1) author misrepresentation to the publisher or reader; (2) undeclared bias; and (3) neglect of the learner through ignorance or rejection of learning theory and pedagogical principles. I would be very interested to hear visitors' views and about other factors that might be included in a discussion of the ethics of authorship.

Labels: authorship, ethics

posted by Mary Ellen Lepionka @ 12:38 PM