Inclusive Access Course Materials: The Impact on Student Outcomes

Abstract

The rising cost of course materials over the last 20 years has had a negative impact on student finances, higher education choices, and grades. Two recent models have emerged to help increase student access to course materials while driving down acquisition costs – third party open educational resources and publisher content driven inclusive access programs. The potential impact of open educational resources on student outcomes has been widely studied. However, the potential impact of inclusive access programs on student outcomes has been studied less so. The intent of this quantitative correlational research study was to examine the relationship of student outcomes for students who had their required course materials provided on or before the first day of class, as part of an inclusive access program, compared to students who had the responsibility of sourcing their own required course materials. Study population size was 2,550 (N=2550). Data analysis techniques used in this study include chi-square test of independence and independent t-tests with a standard p-value of .05. Results of the data analysis revealed varying improvement in the increase in the number and percentages of students who passed a class with a letter grade ‘C’ or better when their required course materials were provided as part of an inclusive access program, compared to students who had the responsibility of sourcing their own required course materials. Furthermore, the results of chi-square and t-tests, provided insight into any statistically significant relationships between student populations who were enrolled in courses using an inclusive access program and student populations who had the responsibility to source their own required course materials.

Equitable Access: A Course Completion Rate Analysis from a 4-Year Institution

“…-0.47% The post-equitable access implementation population experienced a 2.32% increase in grade letter A while all other letter grades experienced a decrease from the pre-equitable access implementation population. Unlike previous course materials intervention research, this study did not find an impactful reduction in withdrawal or incompletes in the post-equitable access population (Moore, 2021;Moore, 2022b;Moore & Piazza, 2022).…”

“…These results are in line with previous discussions on course materials interventions and their impact on underrepresented student populations (Moore, 2021;Moore & Piazza, 2022;Moore 2022b). This study did not seek to understand student perceptions, so it is difficult to definitively say…”

“…Analysis for this study utilized multiple 2x2 chi-square tests of independence with one degree of freedom to understand if there were statistically significant differences in course completion rates between the pre and post equitable access implementation populations. Studies examining the impact of course materials intervention models like equitable access have previously used chi-square tests of independence to examine statistically significant relationships between pre and post implementation populations (Fischer, et al, 2015;Moore, 2021, Moore, 2022bMoore & Piazza, 2022). This study utilized a p-value of .05 for analysis.…”

“…Increased access to course materials may contribute to increased student outcomes (Hurley & Fekrazad, 2020;Moore, 2021;Moore & Piazza, 2022;Spica, 2021;Williams et al, 2020). The purpose of this study was to understand if the use of an equitable access course materials model had any impact on the course completion rate of students enrolled in an equitable access program compared to students who had to source their own required course materials.…”

“…while others have shown mixed results in the categories studied(Moore, 2021; Moore & Pizza, 2022).AsMoore & Piazza (2022) suggested, it is incumbent upon practitioners -administrators and faculty -to look beyond the statistical significance to see how adoption of these course materials intervention models can help students be more successful and stay on track during their academic journey and degree attainment. Course materials intervention research isn't rocket science, but course materials intervention adoption could help someone become a rocket scientist.…”