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Average yearly undergraduate student textbook costs are $1,200. Student financial aid may not cover textbooks; many students do not purchase required textbooks, therefore do not fully achieve learning objectives. The Congressional Budget recently allocated $5 million to college open textbook programming. This pilot study evaluated use of interactive, tailored, online reading resources as a replacement for traditional textbooks in an online, undergraduate, elective social work course. The rationale behind the textbook replacement intervention was based on: (1) data indicating that students underutilize traditional textbooks; (2) textbooks are quickly outdated; (3) textbooks vary in the degree to which they are relevant to a specific course’s learning objectives; and, (4) evidence indicating better learning outcomes when students are actively engaged with learning materials (reading textbooks involves passive learning). Thirteen interactive (using H5P tools), online, no-cost “coursebooks” were produced using Pressbooks and open educational resource (OER)s, developed specifically for each of the course modules. Student cost of the latest edition for the previously required, replaced textbook and student guide was $192. This work was partially funded by the university’s “Affordable Learning Exchange” program. The two research questions were:
RQ1: How did students experience the new coursebooks compared to traditional textbooks?
RQ2: What was the impact on student performance (grades)?
Methods: RQ1 was addressed through online surveys completed by 36 of the 90 students enrolled in 4 sections of the course at the conclusion of the first semester of implementation. RQ2 was a comparison of grades for all 284 students: N=194 prior to implementation, N=90 following implementation.
Results: Descriptive statistics (RQ1) indicated 84% completed readings by recommended dates; compared to traditional textbooks, the vast majority found the new coursebooks to be somewhat or much better in terms of engaging writing (72%), relevant content (88%), current content (94%), and a good value (87%). Asked if they would elect a course using this approach compared to traditional textbooks in the future, 71% would and 19% would have no preference. Independent sample t-test results (RQ2) indicated significantly higher course grades among students using the new coursebooks (Mprior=84.27, Mfollowing=87.49, t(280)=-2.01, p<.05). The advantage translated to the difference between B and B+ grades, and was more pronounced for some course sections and campuses than others.
Conclusions and Implications: This approach can contribute in meaningful ways to enhancing affordability and access to social work education; student satisfaction was high and performance outcomes positive. Study limitations include the post-only, retrospective design, and 40% response rate for RQ1, and data available only for the first semester of the first course in the planned innovation sequence. Barriers to implementation include the time and effort involved in creating and maintaining these resources, copyright issues, faculty merit and tenure review questions for this type of scholarly activity, needing local expertise for development and peer review, and programs under contract with publishing companies. Planned future work includes evaluating the approach in larger-enrolled required courses. As more OERs become available, the community of social work programs can engage in greater resource sharing.