Curriculum-Textbook Alignment Analysis between the National Curriculum of Pakistan 2022-23 Mathematics and the Grade 8 Mathematics Textbook: A Directed Qualitative Content Analysis in the Balochistan Context

Abstract

In this research, the alignment between the NCP 2022-23 Mathematics curriculum and the Grade 8 Mathematics textbook published by the Balochistan Textbook Board has been measured qualitatively using the directed qualitative content analysis method. All 68 SLOs, which cover five domains (numbers and operations, algebra, Measurement, geometry, and statistics and probability), have been examined against a coded corpus comprising 977 textual records, of which 873 are substantive learning episodes from the textbook. The seven-dimensional alignment model (formal mapping, content and scope, cognitive demand, representation, context and modeling, mathematical practices, and opportunity to learn) was used for each SLO to make an overall within-case alignment judgment. While all 68 SLOs were formally mapped in the textbook, only 40 of them (58.8%) were strongly aligned, 25 (36.8%) were partially aligned, and 3 (4.4%) were weakly aligned, with no wholly unaligned SLOs. High representational and procedural fidelity can be seen in numerous multimodal and worked-example/practice episodes. However, low cognitive and contextual fidelity is evident: while the curriculum requires higher-order demand (analysis, justification, or creation) for 26 out of 68 SLOs (38.2%), only 6.2% of learner-response episodes involve such cognitive demand, and 77.1% of episodes lack real-world context. Thus, the textbook is highly aligned with the curriculum on structural and topical dimensions but less aligned on the epistemic dimension.