When it
comes to college students and course materials, there are a number of
conundrums at work. Consider some of the interesting data that came out of the
fall 2015 Student Watch, a survey of 25,000 students from 56 colleges and
universities:
- Approximately
34% of students said they didn’t obtain at least one textbook listed by their
school as required reading for a course because the instructor told them it
wasn’t actually needed.
- Only
55% of students thought the reading materials for their classes were very or
extremely useful. However, when professors actively utilized the materials
within the course—for discussions, homework, quizzes, and so on—then 72% of
students gave high marks to their usefulness. That indicates students need the
instructor’s help to see how course materials tie in with their class lectures.
- The
average price paid by students per course material was $75.32. However,
students are actually amenable to paying quite a bit more than that. Students
who felt their course materials had been extremely useful were willing to pay
as much as $194.28 per book. Even students who said their materials were not at
all useful were willing to fork over up to $143.25 for each.
Student
Watch surveys are conducted twice a year by OnCampus Research, the research arm
of indiCo, a subsidiary of NACS.