Pub Res Q (2011) 27:188–196

DOI 10.1007/s12109-011-9217-4

Student Attitudes and Behaviors Towards Digital

Textbooks

Mitchell Weisberg

Published online: 23 June 2011

 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011

Abstract The purpose of this article is to add to the collective body of knowledge
on student behavior and attitudes relative to the adoption of digital textbooks. The
article summarizes an ongoing research project that examines past, current and
evolving behavior in the classroom related to digital textbooks and school. It
includes students, faculty and administrative attitudes behaviors and perceptions.
This research was undertaken at the Sawyer Business School of Suffolk University
in Boston, Massachusetts. Student attitudes and behavior toward their use of digital
textbooks (eTextbooks) in higher education was examined in an ongoing longitu-
dinal study over two years at Sawyer Business School, Suffolk University. Students
in the class were divided into six teams. Five of the teams were assigned an
eTextbook device and the sixth team was given a paper textbook for use through the
semester. The digital technologies examined were: Amazon Kindle, Sony eReader
Touch, Apple iPad, enTourage eDGe, and CourseSmart. Student attitudes and
behaviors were examined pre and post class by survey each semester, and during the
semesters through quizzes, journals and classroom discussion. Differential learning
was measured between the six teams. Student attitudes and behaviors are becoming
more receptive to and accepting of using digital textbooks each year. There was no

M. Weisberg (&)
Lumen, Inc., 16 Arrowhead Road, Weston, MA 02493, USA
e-mail: miw3@cornell.edu

M. Weisberg
Department of Strategy and International Business, Sawyer Business School,
Suffolk University, Boston, MA 02108, USA

M. Weisberg
Health Informatics and Management, School of Health and Environment,
University of Massachusetts, Lowell, MA 01854, USA

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significant difference in learning between the eTextbook devices teams or between

them and the paper textbook team.

Keywords Digital disruption
Publishing industry
Industry transformation

Apple
iPad
Amazon
Kindle
enTourage eDGe
Sony
eReader
CourseSmart

Student learning
eTextbook
Digital textbooks
eBook
User adoption

Readiness
Weisberg
Distribution
Longitudinal study
Textbook industry

Higher education
Attitudes
Behavior
Learning
Informatics
Mitchell
Weisberg
Change management
Performance management
Analytics

Pearson education
Pearson
Performance improvement
Lumen

Introduction

As education has become a higher priority for the country there has been a greater
focus the quality of learning and on the economics providing learning tools and
equipment (textbooks). In the 21st-century there is a clear and emerging desire by
all stakeholders to take advantage of rich media and access to information provided
by the Internet to provide better education. Concurrently the textbook industry and
the broader industries of all print media are being disrupted and transformed by
digital technology in the form of e-books and eReaders.
The challenges facing each of the major stakeholders in textbook industry
transformation are relatively similar, whether they are on the supply side or the
demand side the equation. All stakeholders are facing significant disruption in the
marketplace that will profoundly affect their economics, operations and business
models. Distribution of printed content is a highly integrated system facing business
transformation on the supply-side mediated by adoption rates on the demand side.
The dynamics and rate of transformation are being both mediated and catalyzed by a
series of social, economic and technology forces (Fig. 1).
Students in today’s classroom are becoming much more technologically savvy
every year. This comfort with technology comes from growing up in an
environment where they have encountered, and in fact been bombarded with new
technologies at an ever-increasing pace. Digital technology has pervaded every
aspect of their lives: how they play, how they socialize, how they communicate, and
how they learn. They’ve grown up with digital devices, and the students are on the

Fig. 1 Model of Publishing

Industry Transformation and
Student Adoption

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cusp of expecting technology to be integrated seamlessly into most experiences of

the personal, professional and social aspects of their life. It is a foregone conclusion
that they are looking to further integrate technology into their academic life as much
as possible. These cultural forces counterbalanced meeting head-on with the
traditional academic environment. The academic environment can be characterized
as a dynamic tension between tradition and innovation, i.e. balancing enhancing the
foundation of existing knowledge, while pushing the frontiers of new knowledge.
These forces act upon both the content and the media of the academic environment.
In the Sawyer Business School, Suffolk University, Department of Strategy and
International Business, Boston, MA, a section of the strategic management class
students are participating in research and examining the technology disruption and
industry response in the publishing market. They are focusing particularly on the
textbook segment of the market which is being significantly disrupted by the advent
and influx of electronic readers, tablet-like devices, and digital textbooks. The class,
Management Strategy 429 is the capstone course at the Sawyer Business School.
The Sawyer Business School focuses on global business education and offers
undergraduate and graduate degrees. Suffolk University is a private, non-sectarian
university. Suffolk employs nearly 800 full-time and adjunct faculty members, who
instruct approximately 8,000 undergraduate and graduate students. Mitchell
Weisberg teaches this section of the course with a focus on business and industry
responses to disruptive technologies.

Overview of Research

The study is a two-year longitudinal study of student attitudes and behaviors

towards the use of digital textbooks or eTextbooks in the classroom. It was begun in
the fall semester of 2009 academic year.
The study population consists of all the members of one section per semester in
the management strategy class, beginning in Fall, 2009. All the students are senior
undergraduates in business. The core content of the class is much the same as one
might find in a class on management strategy in many universities. This is a
capstone class of business students, so this class draws upon their experience and
knowledge from all previous lessons in their business curriculum. The class follows
the traditional pedagogical model of textbook reading, homework assignments and
papers, and classroom lecture and discussion.
The data is collected in three tiers: student research, observations of student
behavior, and learning assessments. The student research was conducted by both
myself and the students. Surveys were conducted at the beginning of the semester and
the end of each semester on students’ attitudes and behavior. During the semester the
students also engaged in research on attitudes behavior their peers, and the literature,
and of themselves. This data is collected from student papers, weekly journals, and in
anecdotal form from classroom discussions. Attitudes and student actual behavior is
measured by the use of textbooks in class assignments, in the classroom, and their
purchase behavior of eTextbook devices prior, during or immediately post class. Data
on student learning is collected from objective quizzes on readings and assignments,

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exams, student papers and classroom participation. This article reports preliminary
findings from the first semesters of the study; the research is ongoing.

Methodology

The students in this study were randomly divided into teams. Each team was
randomly assigned an eReader or textbook device, including one team which was
assigned a traditional paper textbook. Students also had a traditional paper textbook
as backup to ensure that they were able to accomplish the learning objectives of the
course, should the eReader not work out for them. EReaders and tablets were loaned
to the students for the duration of the semester-long class. The textbook devices
included in this study were: Amazon Kindle, Sony eReader Touch, Apple iPad,
enTourage eDGe, CourseSmart, and paper textbook. Initial funding for devices was
provided by Pearson.

Findings

General Findings

Students have become more receptive to digital textbooks in their attitudes towards
digital textbooks and their behaviors in their use of them. There has been an
observable change in the student attitudes and behaviors during the first 2 years of
the study.
When the study was begun the fall semester 2009 eReaders and eTextbook
devices were relatively new and unknown to the students. The leading devices at the
time were the Kindle and the Sony eReader Touch. The students were relatively
unfamiliar with the devices, and the devices themselves offered little more than
straightforward reading capabilities. After using the devices for the semester the
general attitude of the students in the class was that these eTextbooks or devices
were not quite ready for classroom use. It was their general conclusion that the
students currently in elementary school would be the ones would be most likely to
use eTextbooks; in other words, they felt that students were two generations away
from readiness to use eTextbooks. The student consensus was that those students
who are currently seniors in high school or middle school would still continue using
standard textbooks, and would continue taking notes for classes on paper.
There was a significant observable change in consensus of students in the classes
of the Spring 2010 and Fall 2010. The students in those classes experienced the initial
evolution of the eReader devices which now had basic note taking, highlighting and
search capabilities. In the Fall 2010 semester we added iPads and the enTourage
eDGes to the set of devices used in the class. The students proved the previous
semesters’ students forecast for student readiness to use eTextbooks devices was
overly pessimistic; several the students enjoyed the use of eTextbooks and suggested
that it was their preferred way to read their textbook felt over a paper textbook. For
example, they found value in the ability to use eTextbooks on the train, to read the

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Fig. 2 Student Readiness and

Use is Accelerating

more easily in bed, and to carry them with them and/or have them available whatever
they wanted to study. They also liked the features (e.g. CourseSmart) of being able to
access their textbook wherever they were. During the course of the class one student
went out and purchased her own device to keep (Fig. 2).
In Spring semester 2011 both the students’ technology readiness or awareness
and the devices’ capabilities had advanced further. The devices now included more
advanced capabilities such as: note taking capability, ability to share notes, ability to
highlight and search notes. The students were well aware of digital textbooks and
had preferences on which device they wanted. Several of the students already
owned digital readers (e.g. Kindles, iPads). Several of the students were also using
their phones to read books (Fig. 3).

Detailed Findings

The textbook devices were new to the students. However they saw the class as an
opportunity to explore new technology in a supportive environment while learning
the class material. By the end of the semester, over each of the three semesters the
students saw the eReaders or tablets to be valuable as either a primary or secondary
textbook. Students are used to employing their computers or laptops as research
tools. However they do not currently see their laptop or computer as a replacement
for the textbook. They do see value in having their textbook available digitally on
the computer for research. In the study 71% of the students reported that they would
use their computer as a secondary textbook is the textbook were available in digital
format. Examples given of the secondary use included researching specific topics
for papers or referring back to material when studying for quizzes.
The picture is quite different for tablets or eReaders. The students demonstrated a
willingness to use the textbook on an eReader as their primary or secondary
textbook. Of the students in the class 29% suggested that they would use a tablet
device as their primary textbook if it were available, and 54% of the students
reported that they would use the tablet eTextbooks as a secondary device, or refer to
it as on an as needed basis. The responses for eReaders as textbooks were similar
with 26% of the students reporting that they would use eReader as their primary text

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Fig. 3 Student Would Choose eTextbook Over Paper Textbook

and 65% reporting that they would use it as a secondary text. Approximately 10%
reported that they would not use the device as either primary or secondary textbook.
The students’ behavior was collected on tests, discussion and a survey confirmed
that their behavior aligned with and followed their attitudes. 54% of the students
read either all or most of the course reading assignments on the eReader device
assigned to their team. Another 29% read some or half of the assignments on the
eReader textbook device. The number of students who reported that they would not
use an eReader device for their textbook even if were available, decreased by over
50% over the duration of the class to less than 10% of the students.
Another factor examined in the study is whether there is differential learning
between the students using traditional textbooks and the eTextbook reading devices.
The data for this assessment was gathered from weekly quizzes given to the students
following the reading of the assigned chapters on their devices. In order to account
for differences in ability which may occur in the teams, the scores were normalized
against a school-wide exam. There was no significant difference in the quiz scores
between the different device (or traditional text book) teams. We can conclude that
the devices neither improved nor hindered the students’ learning of the course
material (Fig. 4).

Devices: Amazon Kindle, Sony eReader Touch, Apple iPad, CourseSmart

By making the textbooks available to the students equally with paper textbooks, we
removed the question of cost or availability as a determinant of student eTextbooks

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Fig. 4 No Differentiation of Learning with Different Textbook Devices

use. In this environment, 87% of the students reported that they would use an
eTextbook if given the choice (Fig. 5). Specifically, 83% of the students reported
that they would use a digital textbook on tablet as a primary or secondary textbook
and 91% would use digital textbook on an eReader as a primary or secondary
textbook.
The research also collected anecdotal information from journals and classroom
discussion on factors that led to an increased or decreased attitudes towards use
eTextbooks in the classroom. Factors cited for increasing the desirability of the
eTextbooks over paper textbooks included opinions that eTextbooks:
• provide greater convenience and portability
• are lower cost; less expensive than paper textbook
• offer a valuable ability to conduct search of the content
• are appropriate media and desired by the ‘‘Y’’ generation.
Factors cited for decreasing the desirability of the eTextbooks over paper
textbooks included the opinion that paper textbooks:
• enable easier concentration the digital readers (i.e. there are less distractions in a
paper textbook than on a tablet)
• provide a greater ability to comprehend the content
• are personal preference for many students.
In discussions, students consistently focused on the ability or the inability of the
devices to increase their learning. They discussed two dimensions on increasing
learning: increasing the quality of their learning as demonstrated on quizzes or tests,

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Fig. 5 Students Prefer eTexbook as Secondary Text

and increasing the efficiency of their learning by decreasing the amount of time and
effort to accomplish the course tasks (e.g. research papers and classroom
preparation). In these discussions, and as further demonstrated by the data gathered
from student quizzes, there was no increase or decrease in the students’ quality of
learning through the use of digital versus traditional paper textbooks. However the
students were pleased with the increased efficiency that the digital textbooks
provided them (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6 Students Were Willing to Use eTextbooks as Assigned

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Conclusions

In this ongoing study we examined students’ attitudes and behavior towards the use
of eTextbooks relative to traditional paper textbooks. We also examined the
potential impact of eTextbooks on students learning. Over the past several semesters
we’ve seen an increase in, and an acceleration of the students’ willingness to use
eTextbooks. This increase has also been demonstrated in their actual use of digital
textbooks in the classroom when the devices are made available. The major factors
observed in this study that are driving student acceptance of the digital textbooks in
the classroom are economics (i.e. cost) and students perceived impact of the devices
on their learning. One last major driving force of the use of digital textbooks in the
classroom is whether they are assigned a recommended by the instructor. The
researcher also demonstrated that there is no impact on the students’ learning
through the use of digital textbooks versus traditional textbooks; there is neither
increased nor decreased learning of the course content.

Areas for Further Study

Over the next year the study will continue to track students’ attitudes and behaviors
towards the use of digital textbooks in the college classroom. Areas of further study
will include factors that increase or decrease the desire of the students to use the
digital textbooks. We will also study factors that may impact the quality of their
learning. In addition, the ongoing study will add numbers of students to the
longitudinal study to further map the rate and acceptance of change in the classroom.

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