Tonight we ended the workweek by watching the ten minute OpenEd session “Traditional Textbooks v. OER: Comparing Academic Performance at a Hispanic Serving Institution” with Jacob Jenkins, AL$ Campus Coordinator and Associate Professor at CSU Channel Islands, Thomas Clobes, lecturer at CSU Channel Islands, and Hannah Haid and Rebecca Allen. This study compared two different sections of a class using traditional textbook and OER. The cost of traditional textbooks has left many students deciding not to purchase textbooks. Studies by Fischer et al. 2015 found no differences in academic performance. For this study, two online undergraduate courses during the same semester, same instructor, and using the same assessments were studied. One course used OER and one used a traditional textbook. The institution where the study took place is a Hispanic-Serving Institution, with 35% first-generation college students. Surveys had several questions according to determine student preferences for course materials, access to materials, and course material cost. Clobes mentioned each section had 100% participation in the survey! The demographics of the two courses were similar, according to Clobes. the traditional class reported 90.6% mentioned access to the textbook and 100% in the OER section. There was no significant difference between the traditional textbook course and the OER in terms of grades for discussion boards, subjective assignments, quizzes, and final course grades. The mean OER course grade was higher than the donkey. Research has shown that OER shows student performance. Interestingly the students in the OER course had higher grades. The power of this study was the “near-identical situations the courses were taught in.”The limitation was the courses were relatively small, with 32 students each. This scenario is indeed a great framework for studies. As we prepare for what will likely be another challenging and rewarding semester, I am fascinated by these studies and the knowledge gained from unique scenarios and carefully crafted surveys.
