CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter presents the conceptual literature and the synthesis of the study.

CONCEPTUAL LITERATURE
College students may seem to be well-equipped to learn in a wired world, but
despite the enormous growth of tablets, e-readers and digital textbooks, they still prefer
heavy, expensive print books.
These were the results of a pilot program created to understand why students
have been slow to adopt digital texts and what would have to change in order to make
them the preference. The pilot was developed by the University of Wisconsin, Cornell,
University of Minnesota, University of Virginia and Indiana University, which decided to
jointly investigate how e-textbooks could be used on their campuses with an e-text pilot
during the spring semester of 2012.
What they found, produced in a report called Internet2 [PDF], was that, for
purposes of study, at least, e-books were not quite there yet in terms of usability, visual
presentation and navigation tools. The pilot program pointed out some glaring flaws in
the e-reader model: Students reported problems with readability, complained of
eyestrain, and said the e-books were not fully compatible with all mobile devices. They
also noted that the navigation features meant to enhance learning like zoom,
highlighting and annotation dont function well.
Whats more, the functions that make e-books more attractive to students than
print books werent being fully maximized by faculty. Features like annotating texts,
collaboration tools and the ability to share notes with other students werent being used
or modeled by the professors. And if educators used the e-books like a print textbook,
thats what students did as well. Faculty agreed that they did not often use the extra
features available to them and wanted further training. But even for those who did use
shared annotation features, some actually found it to be more distracting, especially
when those annotations were from other students, not the professor.


WHAT THEY LIKED: Students said the biggest reason theyd choose e-books is
because they cost significantly less than a used or new textbook. The College Board
reports that the average student spends over a thousand dollars per school year on
textbooks.
Aside from money saving aspect, students also liked the portability and ease of
accessing textbooks on a tablet, e-reader or computer instead of carting around heavy
books. Students also said theyd be more likely to choose the e-book if it didnt require
access to the Internet, and if it was available to them for the duration of their college
education, not just for the semester, which is how many e-books are offered.
But theres hope for the e-readers. Students whose teachers used the shared
annotation and highlighting features reported that they got more out of the class. And
those same students were more likely to annotate as well, resulting in better
performance.
The universities involved in the pilot are now discussing next steps hoping to
improve usage. One big thing theyre discussing is how to make e-readers widely
available and not linked to one publisher or one platform.
Two big lessons learned from the pilot were that students have high expectations
for their texts, whether print or electronic; and that successfully using e-readers means
not just learning to use the service, but also learning how to teach and learn from a new
platform.
A similar study last year, conducted by eBrary reported similar findings: In its
2011 Global Student E-Book Survey, students e-book usage has not increased
significantly in the past three years.

RELATED ARTICLES
According to Angela Chen (Students Find E-Textbooks Clumsy and Dont Use
Their Interactive Features), several universities have recently tried a new model for
delivering textbooks in hopes of saving students money: requiring purchase of e-
textbooks and charging students a materials fee to cover the costs. A recent report on
some of those pilot projects, however, shows that many students find the e-textbooks
clumsy and prefer print.
The report is based on a survey conducted this spring of students and faculty at
five universities where e-textbook projects were coordinated by Internet2, the high-
speed networking group. Students praised the e-books for helping them save money
but didnt like reading on electronic devices. Many of them complained that the e-book
platform was hard to navigate. In addition, most professors who responded said that
they didnt use the e-books collaborative features, which include the ability to share
notes or create links within the text.
The participating universities were Cornell, Indiana University at Bloomington,
and the Universities of Minnesota, Virginia, and Wisconsin at Madison. The pilot is the
result of a partnership between the institutions, Internet2, McGraw-Hill, and Courseload,
an e-book broker. After paying $20,000 each, the participating institutions were provided
with the Courseload platform and e-textbooks for up to 1,000 students to use. Each
university was individually responsible for training professors and distributing the e-
textbooks.
The pilot projects are based on a model pioneered at Indiana University in 2009
by Bradley C. Wheeler, the universitys vice president for information technology. The
university buys bulk e-textbooks to distribute to students, who pay a mandatory course-
materials fee to cover the costs, with the idea that the university can get a much better
rate per book by buying in bulk.
Mr. Wheeler said he still believed in the approach, arguing that complaints about
unfamiliarity are normal in any group adopting new technology.
With technology, many things change with repeated use, he said. People have lots of
early first impressions as they experience new things, and then over time you start to
see things become more mainstream, as the technology improves and skills and even
attitudes toward use improve.
According to the report, students said e-textbooks somewhat became part of
their learning routine but didnt help them interact more with classmates or the
professor, largely because most people didnt use the collaborative features. Mr.
Wheeler noted that the students of professors who did annotate their e-textbooks
reported having a better experience, since these capabilities make the electronic text
much more than just an alternative to a physical book.
Only 12 percent of students purchased a print copy of the book, Mr. Wheeler said.
The report contains suggestions for institutions trying the approach in the future.
These include training professors to take advantage of the digital features and
determining a method of evaluating e-textbooks independent of the e-reader platform.
Twenty-four universitiesincluding Dartmouth College, Middlebury College, and
Michigan State Universitywill join the pilot program this fall.



SYNTHESIS

The conceptual literature and related added more information about the attributes
and knowledge what the materials is all about. Most college students still prefer to use
the printed book than the e-books. The target of the study is to look for the distinction of
printed books and e-books to the selected students of San Pedro College of Business
Administration upon using to their study.
The researchers identify related studies where respondents live around the
vicinity of SPCBA and other nearby villages. In our research, we try to determine the
perception of the selected students to the legibility, cost, portability, durability,
availability, and the environmental aspects of printed books and e-books.