Abstract
Although prior research has examined student perceptions of open materials, research investigating students’ perceptions of open versus copyright-restricted textbooks through a direct, experimental approach is lacking. To better understand how students perceive open textbooks outside the context of the classroom, we examined students’ perceptions of unfamiliar open and non-open (copyright-restricted) psychology textbooks. Forty-four introductory psychology students reviewed chapters from two open textbooks and two traditional/copyrightrestricted textbooks and then ranked the textbooks from most to least favourite. Students rated each chapter on several quality measures, including layout structure, visual appeal, ease of reading, and instructional features. Next, bibliographical information and cost were revealed, and students re-ranked the textbooks accordingly. Before knowing the bibliographic information and cost, students were more likely to prefer the two traditional textbooks. There after, they were more likely to select the open texts. Students often referred to textbook price as a determining factor for their change.
Highlights
As the use of open materials in classrooms becomes increasingly common, educators and researchers are calling for closer examination of the quality of open materials, including open textbooks
For all 12 questions, the only statistically significant difference between the textbooks were on Q6 and Q7, both of which asked about visual images (Table 1)
The extent of the difference in book ranking after bibliographic information revealing was explored. 20.5% (n = 9) of the respondents raised the ranking for Introduction to Psychology by one, 9.1% (n = 4) of students raised the ranking by 2, and 4.5% (n = 2) moved the book ranking up by 3
Summary
As the use of open materials in classrooms becomes increasingly common, educators and researchers are calling for closer examination of the quality of open materials, including open textbooks. In the open textbook literature, researchers often follow the COUP framework, which examines the quality of open textbooks by assessing cost savings, outcomes, use, and perceptions (Bliss, Robinson, Hilton, & Wiley, 2013). Using this framework, the main dimensions of open materials can be examined. Psychology (open) Psychology (open) Mastering Psychology (non-open) Understanding Psychology (non-open) SS df MS Book Error Total. Students’ responses about the factors that influenced their rankings were coded according to categories, arranged in four groups. The final group included responses that did not provide a specific feature or factor relevant to the other categories. As evident in the subsequent discussion, some categories overlap and interact
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