Shadlan Gale, Utah Valley University
Education
This paper presents ongoing research comparing the learning performance of students using online and electronic textbooks/course content (e-text) for business-related classes versus students using traditional, hard-copy textbooks. In fall 2013, the Woodbury School of Business (WSB) at Utah Valley University (UVU) converted over fifty courses to e-text only. The WSB made this transition in many of its classes for various financial reasons as well as to provide students with a more interactive way of learning course material through the application of the additional learning tools that can only be found within the e-text platforms. In a previously published paper, the authors showed that no statistical difference was found in test scores for students at UVU taking a class which implemented the use of e-text among three different delivery types: live, hybrid, and online. This paper focuses more on discovering if student performance and test scores change by using e-text versus hard-copy textbooks and not in relation to the delivery type of the course.
Multiple student focus groups were held at UVU to discover any possible, prominent and/or recurring themes, either positive or negative, among the thoughts of students in relation to their perceived coursework performance, pre-class preparation and/or test score improvements in courses using e-text. Findings from these focus groups were recorded, transcribed and summarized in order to develop a thorough analysis of students’ opinions concerning their coursework performance/pre-class preparation and to determine both the accuracy and validity of survey questions that will, in turn, be distributed to over one-thousand UVU students regarding any changes in test-score performance by transitioning to e-text. Finally, end-of-semester test scores for students using e-text will be compared with those of students using hard-copy textbooks; any and all findings will be included to find any changes in student performance and/or improvements in test scores.