Students and Affordable Course Content
Kristi Jensen
by Kristi Jensen, University of Minnesota (bio)
Introduction
Throughout this book, colleagues from across higher education—including faculty, librarians, instructional designers, academic technologists, and others—explain the need for more affordable content options, and provide examples of specific processes and programs. After providing an overview of two important and complex issues tied to affordable content efforts—student preference for print materials and the impact of digital versus print materials on student learning and comprehension—this chapter elevates that student voice by sharing feedback from students at the University of Minnesota (UMN) who enrolled in courses that utilized affordable course content.This wealth of information includes blueprints for how to implement an affordable content program, the pros and cons of particular approaches, and descriptions of why this work is important and how it impacts faculty and students.
One voice that is not as pronounced, perhaps, is that of the student. After providing an overview of two important and complex issues tied to affordable content efforts—student preference for print materials and the impact of digital versus print materials on student learning and comprehension—this chapter elevates that student voice by sharing feedback from students at the University of Minnesota (UMN) who enrolled in courses that utilized affordable course content.
Research on Student Preferences Regarding Course Materials
Limitations of Current Surveys
Affordable content efforts often provide students with digital course materials. Our efforts at UMN are no exception; almost all of the faculty we work with utilize digital course materials in one way or another. Students can print many of those materials themselves, but the cost of this option (either the cost of supplies for personal printers or printing charges for University-provided printing) negatively impacts affordability. Since one of our goals is to save students money, we realized early in our work that we needed to develop an understanding of student attitudes and perceptions about digital materials, discover whether or not students choose to print the course materials in order to use them, and determine the impact of these materials on students’ ability to study for and succeed in a course. In the long run, we planned to survey our students, but until that time we had to rely on information we could gather from others.
Surveys addressing student behavior related to purchasing course materials are numerous, but it was more challenging to find information on how students actually use affordable course materials. Popular press and research publications frequently focus on two issues: student preference for print materials and the impact of digital materials on student learning. As we reviewed publications on these topics, we found conflicting information, along with research that failed to demon