The second pillar of the eText/IPM initiative is achievement. It was reasoned that students who didn’t have access to required resources because of cost were having their academic achievement negatively affected. Thus, by removing the barrier to on-time acquisition with the IPM, student achievement should improve; as well, the enhanced features that eTexts offered over traditional textbooks could help students learn and succeed. No evidence was found to support this reasoning, though that is not to say that more work could be done to improve both teaching and learning with eTexts.

Student achievement

To examine the impact of the eText/IPM initiative on student achievement, four years of grades data from the Registrar’s Office were analyzed. The analysis aimed to determine whether a difference existed between the grades earned in IPM courses as compared to non-IPM courses. Students in IPM courses would have had access to their resources from the beginning of classes, or, in many cases, before the beginning of classes; thus, if access to resources played a large role in student achievement, or if barriers to access had a negative impact, we would be able to see such a difference in a comparison of grades. Of the two groups of analyses that were conducted, both returned a statistically significant difference between the achievement in non-IPM and IPM courses.

For the pooled grades analysis, the results favored grades from non-IPM courses with the effect sizes in the small-to-negligible range. For the student GPA analyses, the overall student GPA analysis favoured grades from non-IPM courses, with a small to negligible effect size; when separating by faculty or school, the analysis did not uniformly favour one group over the other, and also had a variety of effect sizes. In one instance, a small-to-moderate effect size was detected for the Faculty of Technology and Trades (d = -.228, mean difference = -.147, SD = .627, SE = .008). From this, we are left to conclude that we found no evidence to support to notion that, in general, the inclusion of a course in the IPM improves achievement. There may, however, be specific instances where types of resources or certain programs may benefit from inclusion in an eText/IPM, though by a small amount.

From a student perspective, while financial barriers may exist for resource acquisition for some, major considerations for resource acquisition were how well a resource was integrated into a course and whether or not a resource was essential for success in a course. Still, some faculty felt strongly about students having the required resources for their course and have expressed some reluctance at giving up the power that the IPM affords to mandate resource acquisition.

Format doesn’t make a difference

In an attempt to distinguish between the eText and the IPM parts of the eText/IPM initiative, an experimental setup was designed in which the IPM resources of some course sections would be swapped for physical resources so that the formats could be compared. Controlling for professor—both control sections and experimental sections were taught by the same faculty member—and course content, a comparison of the control and experimental sections as detailed above revealed no difference in performance between sections: for all of the courses, no statistically significant differences were detected pairwise between experimental and control sections; similarly, when grouping the sections together as experimental and control groups, no statistically differences were detected.

When grouped based on format at the course level, two (out of four possible) statistically significant differences were found, both favouring, based on mean rank, the physical format over the digital. When grouped based on format at the section level, only one statistically difference was detected (out of 4 comparisons), also favouring physical over digital, based on mean rank. Thus, while differences were detected, they were not detected for the majority of the format-based comparison performed. Taken with the findings of the section-based comparisons, the evidence suggests that resource format likely doesn’t make a difference for student achievement, at least for how eTexts are currently being used.

Other than search functionality, students reported rarely using the enhanced features of eText and faculty members similarly reported seeing students use those features. Students expressed that they still want the choice of format; in the IPM, this is achieved either through the fee exemption process or by printing from their eTexts. Both the fee exemption process and the printing process—especially for large quantities of printing—were described by students as not being particularly user friendly. For printing from eTexts, institutional stakeholders are looking for alternatives to make the process easier, including ways of having the on-campus print shop produce a print out of an entire resource.

Faculty use of eTexts

Faculty reported rarely using the enhanced features of eText as part of their teaching, though the reasons for this differed. Some reported being unaware of the features; being aware of the features but not having time to integrate them; or being aware of the features but not knowing how to use them. New part-time faculty receive an overview of the eReader client and eTexts as part of the part-time faculty orientation, but faculty and non-teaching staff alike feel that more training needs to be offered. This is especially important, considering that faculty report finding themselves being asked by students to provide support for eTexts, whether it be with the use of the resource, or, in some cases, when a resource is missing.

For the most part, faculty members teach no differently using eTexts than with traditional textbooks—a resource is a resource, whether it is physical or digital. Some mentioned preferring to use the physical textbook even in an eText/IPM course, where most students would have the digital version. Some faculty members do try to integrate the eText into their courses, whether it be linking to the resource through the learning management system or using enhanced features as part of their pedagogy. One faculty member described how he used highlights and annotation to reinforce in-class teaching or to share commentary within a resource to keep students up to date with the state-of-the-art in his medical field. Another reported how she uses eText features such as highlighting, linking, and sharing, to help give student feedback and encourage students to engage with their course materials.