Introduction and Background

What is the issue in education you wish to address?

What are the effects of electronic textbooks on high school student achievement?  I may refine my question to a specific assessment such as a state-wide end-of-course exam, the ACT, or one of the tests on the ACT.

Describe the personal significance of this question to you.

Personally, I learn better on my own at first.  I like to be able to read through some content, watch a short video clip, try a simulation, highlight/mark passages that I find interesting or have a question about, and annotate the text.  When compared to a traditional high school classes, I think electronic textbooks can provide a richer experience.  Students are usually not allowed to highlight or annotate their textbooks.  They can use sticky notes, but it is not the same.

Describe the practical significance of this question.  For whom else besides yourself might this question be significant?

Teachers, principals, and district administrators might find my question significant.  All three of the parties want to increase student achievement.  Principals and district administrators might be particularly interested in the question if the price is substantially higher or lower than traditional paper textbooks.  They also might be interested if they have money that has to be spent on technology hardware.  They might be able to purchase computers, iPads, or other tablets with the technology money, and then spend nothing or less than they are used to spending on electronic textbooks.

What have others said about the issue?

I was surprised to find that there has been a lot of research surrounding electronic textbooks.  I was not sure if this would be the case, since I had assumed that electronic textbooks were a recent idea.  It turns out they have been around for over a decade.  The downside is that there really was not any research around modern electronic textbooks utilizing Apple’s new iBooks application.

An interesting article (though it is quickly becoming outdated) looked at 11-12 year olds in England that were used to using computers.  The control group used a traditional textbook, while the test group used a CD-ROM (see, the article is showing its age!).  These particular sixty students were chosen because they were used to using computers, so the novelty of using an electronic textbook should be minimized (Maynard, 2005).

A serious limitation of the study is that the two groups of students did not use identical textbooks.  The author mentions that it was very difficult to find identical copies or anything.  At the end of the study, she found that students using the electronic textbooks performed better than their peers, but not statistically significantly better.  I would love to see a similar study done today comparing two identical titles.  The electronic textbooks today have movie clips and simulations embedded in them.  Vocabulary words are hyperlinked.  Instead of the occasional pictures on pages, students can flip through slideshows showing similar or contrasting ideas—without leaving the page.  Students can highlight, annotate, and bookmark whatever they want.

In another article, I read about a Texas initiative to move towards electronic textbooks.  The state is purchasing the electronic books.  Schools can then either print them for their use, or access them online.  Schools can use money that would have otherwise been spent on books, as well as other money, on the technology hardware.  This article did not talk about any findings.  I found it interesting because it addressed the fact that schools can save money that had been earmarked for textbooks, and put it into updating hardware. (Radcliffe, 2010)