Educational textbooks in digital surroundings

Abstract

The Danish educations, as well as the Danish society, are influenced by technology in many ways. This amongst other influences the student’s choices regarding educational learning material. These issues, however, are not solely issues in relation to Danish educations but can be generalized across contexts.

This article, however, presents a discussion of the findings in a Danish study regarding the use of educational textbooks among students in Denmark. The study examines the use of the traditional educational textbooks in terms of how it is used, to what extent it is used, the students' wishes regarding textbooks vs online books and if there are educational and gender differences in their preferences. The study also investigates the student way of handling the textbooks such as sharing, copying, selling and buying etc. in the discussion section the study will compare themes identified in this study across educational contexts, and will thus not solely focus on Danish education contexts.

Empirically, the study builds on a survey conducted among students in the Bachelor Programmes, the Vocational Educational Programmes regarding the Health Care Educations and in the General Upper Secondary Schools. The study includes a response from 1146 students.

The article discusses the findings with perspectives such as work methods, communication, and interaction, and concludes among others that even though the students still prefer the textbooks, the ebooks in some ways supplement this use in a beneficial manner.

The article argues that the textbook and the ebook should not be seen as each other’s competitors but rather as each other’s supplement in terms of learnings styles.