An article from Campus Technology discusses a research project to understand student textbook preferences that is being conducted by Charles Ginn, a field service assistant professor from the University of Cincinnati, and Stephen Acker, research director of OhioLINK’s eText Project. The project recently gave 2,000 students, which were enrolled in 14 sections of an introductory psychology course, the opportunity to purchase either a new print textbook or a cheaper e-textbook. The students involved in the study included those of traditional age (18 to 24) and non-traditional age as well as students taking the course in the classroom and online. The results showed that 22 percent of the students purchased the e-textbook and 41 percent of those students said that they preferred the e-textbook to a traditional textbook. Traditional aged college students were also 1.73 times more likely to purchase the e-textbook than students that were 24 years or older.
According to Charles Ginn, the goal of the project is to work with publishers and college stores to provide students with the option to choose between textbooks and e-textbooks. The initiative conducted for the introductory psychology course will be used as a model for other courses.
