difference between checkbox and checkedtextview in Android? Which to use for RecyclerView?

To supplement the other answers, here is a visual comparison between CheckBox and CheckedTextView. This is running in an emulated Pixel 3 under Android R. Each of these screenshots shows three views inside a vertical LinearLayout.

If you don't specify the checkMark attribute, you get no checkbox on the CheckedTextView:

with android:checkMark="?android:attr/listChoiceIndicatorSingle":

with android:checkMark="?android:attr/listChoiceIndicatorMultiple":

There are other differences, but they're covered by other answers.

As recommended from @LarsH I've turned my comment into an answer instead.

The differences is CheckedTextView doesn't have a checked/click event, see here why

Therefore if you want to have checked/click event for free (you can customize the checked/click listener by yourself) choose CheckBox and its alignment by default is (left aligned TextView & right aligned CheckBox)

You might want to align the TextView's text position (optional: if you want to align into different position, e.g: right aligned TextView & left aligned CheckBox)

Then use it on your RecyclerView holder

CheckBox: Is a specific type of 2 states button that can be either checked or unchecked.

CheckedTextView: Is a TextView with 2 states check and unchecked.

The text is the different between both views, so depend in what you want to do.

About the second question, RecyclerView was created as a ListView improvement.

so to set item in recyclerview first define the itemLayout as below

<CheckBox
  xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
  android:id="@+id/dialog_checklist_checkbox"
  android:layout_width="match_parent"
   android:layout_height="wrap_content"
  android:text="text"
  android:padding="5dp"
  android:gravity="center"
 />

now in recyclerview you can use the checbox properties such as

holder.checkBox.setText("position"+position);

to set the text of respective checkbox.

you can also use other properties of checkbox such as

 holder.checkBox.setOnCheckedChangeListener();

and recyclerview is improved version of listview so try to use recyclerview.