Exploring students’ attitudes toward university e-textbooks: Experiences, expectations, and preferences

Abstract

Universities have been proactively exploring e-textbooks to resolve the issue of high textbook prices. The study examined students’ attitudes toward using e-textbooks through a questionnaire survey of 324 randomly sampled students from eight universities. The analysis highlighted students’ expectations from a library in terms of textbook provision and the preferred format, their intentions and behaviors toward the textbook purchase, perceived equitable discounts in price and ideal preview mechanisms offered by e-textbooks, assessment of e-textbooks, assessment of features in terms of usefulness and practicality, and the extrinsic and intrinsic motivators of adopting e-textbooks. Students in the West and East are similar in expecting libraries to underwrite their textbook access. The students prefer e-textbook over print for the library collection, but vice versa for individually owned textbooks. In the fast-growing virtual learning environment, direct library provision of e-textbooks has become essential, particularly during the pandemic and probably post-pandemic era. Big-screen mobile devices, such as laptops and tablets, are students’ most preferred options for reading e-textbooks. The students perceived e-textbooks as not yet mature and expected improvement. They also lack confidence in their self-control ability to read e-textbooks without distraction in the Internet environment. The findings suggest the design of motivator type of engagement features may focus on individual attainment.

Ethnic Representation in Malaysian Year Five English Language Textbooks from 1968- 2016: from Erasure, to Proliferation, towards a “Malaysian” Narrative?

“…Moreover, future research can go further than we have done, by eliciting teachers' and students' views of their textbooks through questionnaires, interviews, and focus groups. This will enrich the literature with both the "rich descriptions" of the texts themselves as well as the "lived experiences" of those texts by their users (Su, 2022).…”

Preferences for printed books versus E−books among university students in a Middle Eastern country

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