Polynomials in text-books in the Czech Republic and in Finland

This thesis focuses on the teaching of algebra, especially its part called polynomials. The first part contains general characteristics, regularities and goals of teaching algebra at school according to the presentation in specialized literature. The main goal of the work is to compare how polynomials are taught in the Czech Republic and Finland, considering its interpretation and extent in curriculum and textbooks. By comparing selected Czech and Finnish lower and upper secondary school textbooks, it was found out that there was a difference in the extent of teaching patterns for working with polynomials. While the interpretation of this is similar in all of the textbooks, the extent in Czech lower secondary school textbooks is comparable to the extent in Finnish textbooks for upper secondary school with extended education in mathematics. There is also a collection of problems included in this work, as these can act as motivation in teaching polynomials. They have been chosen from Czech and Finnish textbooks and categorized according to their assignment