… a recently completed report on a yearlong pilot at Daytona State, comparing the satisfaction and success of students using all electronic texts with students using all print, has also complicated the picture.
…
“Avoid top-down mandates,” the study’s authors wrote as their top recommendation. “Institutions that require all instructors to simultaneously go e-text might be courting disaster.”
The majority of the students in the study who used exclusively e-texts came away dissatisfied. While they appreciated that there was no possibility of losing or forgetting their textbooks when they could be simply summoned to a device, the students told officials that they found it fatiguing to read off a computer screen (the students used netbooks, rather than e-readers, due to the unavailability, at the time, of certain key texts on the Amazon Kindle).
“During the focus groups, most participants acknowledged that they had not read as much of the assigned material in electronic as they would have in hard copy,” write the authors of the study.
Some students struggled with using software applications rather than the simple hardware of a bound book. “Though some students easily navigated e-text interfaces and fully utilized digital tools, others struggled with basic e-text functionality like creating a user account, entering access codes, locating readings, creating bookmarks, using highlighting tools, and writing notes,” said the researchers.
Thanks to Michael von Glahn for the link.
