Skip to main content

College Students Still Prefer Print Despite Growing eTextbook Popularity

 

SEATTLE, Aug. 31, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Most college students still prefer print textbooks over eTextbooks, though the digital medium is gaining  favor. Direct Textbook surveyed more than 1,100 college students and found that:


54% prefer print textbooks for academic learning
40% prefer eTextbooks
6% have no preference 

Still, comparisons to identical surveys conducted in 2021 and 2015 indicate that eTextbooks are gaining popularity – up 11% from 2021 and 13% from 2015 – while print preference has declined by 8% since 2021 and 18% since 2015.


Students who prefer print cite these reasons:

  1. Easier to read: 75%
  2. Difficulty concentrating on eTextbooks: 64%
  3. The ability to physically highlight: 68%
  4. Internet access isn't required: 49%
  5. eTextbooks are difficult to navigate and bookmark: 46%
  6. eTextbooks make students' eyes hurt: 50%
  7. The ability to write on pages: 39%
  8. The ability to resell print textbooks: 24%
  9. They end up printing eTextbooks anyway: 27%

When I read about why students prefer print, it makes me concerned about the formats that the books are given to the students. These books should be available in a format that allows students to make book accommodations and more. 

1. When I have worked with students who are trying to read ebooks on a device like a Kindle I usually find that they haven't changed the font size, and when they do go larger they are much happier and state how much easier the content is to read.  So make sure to see if you can't change the text size.

2. eText can be harder to concentrate especially on something like a laptop or desktop that gives you announcements all the time. Find out how to turn them off for a period of time and the concentration can be easier.

3. All etexts should allow for highlighting and note taking and bookmarking. If your doesn't complain to the publisher and get them to fix that. One thing that I love about my kindle is that when I'm reading I can highlight and take margin notes, and then I can export those highlights/notes and use them elsewhere to make better notes and concept maps.

4. I agree that if the internet is required then the book isn't set right.

5. see 3

6. This can be fixed by reading with an eink device and new color eink devices are now available. This could also be eyestrain, remember to look away minute or so. People get very used to starring at a screen.  
20-20-20 Rule:
1) every 20 minutes,
2) take a break for 20 seconds,
3) look at something at least 20 feet away (or just close your eyes).

7. see 3

8. true

9. Totally understandable if you are not adjusting the book to your personal needs (font, size, brightness) the ability to read the book without internet, and one that doesn't allow you to highlight/note. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Auto Summarization

In dealing with textbooks and students with disabilities, one of the most common things that we would do is to get the textbook in a digital format, as an ebook. By doing this we were able to use a number of tools based on the need of the student. I've had students who could not lift their physical printed textbook, but would be able to access though a laptop installed in their electronic wheelchair, for students with vision issues we could boost the font size or use a text-to-speech tool to have the book read aloud to them. One tool that I used with a number of my students who had issues was the Auto Summarize tool in Word. The tool works well with textbook, but wouldn't work for other texts, such as novels.  I used this to reduce the amount of text that they had to read, the "cognitive load" of the text, but would still enable be able to get the information. Word did a great job, and depending on the student I would reduce the text to about 66% for facts and support...
7 comments
Read more

Ebooks as Textbooks - Part 2 - Highlighting

Highlighting can be a very effective tool in reading and learning no matter the kind of text being read: from novels to textbooks. Most textbooks or other forms of information text will usually used text features along with graphics to help organize information presented in the text.  These elements are done to help focus attention on important or key concepts and provide additional information. The text organization itself can include structural elements such as heading, subheading, index, glossary, paragraph spacing, bulleted or numbered lists, sidebars or side boxes, italics, underlines or bold for words or even sections. Graphic content can include the use of symbols, colors, illustrations, pictures, diagrams, charts, and graphs. Poor highlighting design - too much text has been highlighted.  The act of highlighting is less time consuming and much easier than note-taking ( to be discussed in an upcoming posting). To be ...
1 comment
Read more

StoryBots - free for early childhood teachers

Pre-K and Kindergarten teachers can have free access to StoryBots from  http://www.storybots.com/educate  . StoryBots Classroom offers an expansive new suite of classroom-ready activities and resources,including: Math Skills – Common Core-aligned kindergarten-level math games  Learning Videos – a library of 110+ animated musical videos that explore a wide range of topics  Starring You® and Learning Books – 90+ eBooks that help kids practice reading  Starring You® Videos – offering fun, quick and personalized reward for the classroom and can be used for brain breaks  Activity Sheets – 20 printable books and 350+ sheets for teachers to use in their classrooms  Teacher Tools – including Class Roster, Lesson Planner, Group Builder — to help educators manage their classroom and create custom plans.
Post a Comment
Read more