E-books and Educational Outcomes

E-books have emerged as a significant resource in the educational landscape, often utilized as supplemental or primary reading materials. The introduction of electronic books is seen as a potential solution to long-standing challenges in reading proficiency within the U.S. educational system, which has been marked by low performance levels, particularly among eighth graders. The COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbated these issues, leading to historic lows in reading and math scores. E-books offer several advantages, such as easy access to a vast library without the constraints of physical space and the ability to provide enhanced features like hyperlinks and interactive multimedia. However, the effectiveness of e-books in improving educational outcomes remains a topic of debate, with research indicating that while they may increase student motivation, comprehension levels often decline in comparison to traditional print books. Furthermore, the gender dynamics surrounding e-book adoption raise concerns about equitable access to technology in educational settings. Overall, while e-books hold great promise, their success in enhancing learning depends significantly on thoughtful implementation and proper guidance from educators.

Published in: 2023

By: Zimmer, Scott

Subject Terms

E-books and Educational Outcomes

This article discusses the impact on the educational arena which has been made by the introduction of electronic books, or e-books, into the curriculum as either supplemental readings or as primary course textbooks.

The U.S. educational system has long struggled with low levels of proficiency in reading scores. Data in the early 2000s showed that two-thirds of students in the eighth grade were only able to read at or below the most basic level of aptitude. What is more, this has been the case for many years; since 1992, these reading scores have only improved by a slight margin. Compared with other developed countries, the United States ranked seventeenth in order of reading proficiency, despite its great wealth and highly modernized society. This was further complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the educational challenges that accompanied it. Data released in 2022 showed reading and math scores at historic lows (Sparks, 2022). This is, to say the least, troubling news for educators and for parents, since a high level of reading ability correlates with the ability to find and retain employment and to attain higher earning potential later in life. It is little surprise, then, that there has been great interest in finding ways to use new technologies to assist students who have difficulty reading and pique the interest of students in reading as a part of their academic lives and as a rewarding pastime.

Schools made major advances in providing access to information and technology beginning in the 1990s. With government assistance and donations from private foundations and other organizations, schools expose students to some of the latest technology and to the research goldmine that is the Internet. Several innovations are of particular importance to literacy development, such as the introduction of software programs and mobile apps that help students learn to read, think critically about what they have read, and apply their insights about their reading to answer thought-provoking questions. Some of these programs even have special features designed for the benefit of students with learning disabilities such as dyslexia.

E-books use computer software to store and display the contents of a traditional book. Depending on the type of technology an e-book vendor uses, it may be possible to read an e-book on a computer screen or on a device specially designed to accommodate users of e-books. These devices have numerous brand names but, in general, are referred to as e-readers. E-readers usually consist of a screen on which the text of the book is displayed, and they often have navigation features that seek to replicate many of the features of a traditional, printed book, such as a table of contents and the option to turn virtual pages of the e-book just as one would turn a paper book's pages.

E-books have many features that interest librarians, educators, and teachers. For example, an institution can build up a library of hundreds of thousands of volumes without needing to dedicate physical space to house shelves for printed books. E-books also can be transmitted electronically over computer networks just like any other type of digital information and can be stored on a central server for access by users all over the world. This is a huge advantage to schools whose students are widely dispersed over a large region; instead of each student having to make the journey to the school's library to locate books for research, students can simply log on to the school's online library and access books from anywhere there is an Internet connection. E-books can also be enhanced versions of their printed counterparts, offering features that paper books do not have. For example, the bibliography of a print book offers useful references to other materials, but the reader will need to try to locate them elsewhere in the library, or even in another library. An e-book's bibliography can contain hyperlinks that will take the reader to the cited material by connecting to it through an Internet browser.

Despite these advantages, the ways in which e-books can and should be used within the sphere of education are still unclear. Questions remain as to whether having access to e-books instead of or in addition to printed volumes has a significant, positive effect on the educational attainment of students. Critics argue that schools should not rush to adopt them without first evaluating both the benefits and the total cost of operation and making rational plans for how to best make use of them in the service of student learning.

Further Insights

Ironically, while e-readers and e-books have exploded in popularity over the last few years, there has been relatively little reliable research conducted into how the use of these technologies improves reading ability. Of the studies that have been performed, many suffer from some form of selection bias. That is, they are conducted on groups that have essentially self-selected by opting to acquire or use e-books or e-readers in the first place, so the participants in the study are likely to be biased in favor of emphasizing the benefits of the technology and minimizing or ignoring its drawbacks. For example, a school district that invests heavily in buying a certain brand of e-reader for its teachers and students will have done so in the belief that acquiring the technology was a wise decision and may exhibit resistance toward information that challenges that perspective. Many researchers have pointed out the need for more objective studies in which subjects are randomly assigned to control and study groups rather than recruited on a voluntary basis.

The acceptability of using e-books and e-readers, along with the use of e-learning platforms, increased during the early 2020s, as the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe. It also increased the amount of time students spent using electronic means of learning. School districts or areas of study that previously relied on in-person learning were forced to rely, at least in part, on electronic means of communication and learning if their processes were to continue (Kuromiya, H. et al., 2022; Kipp M., 2021).

Comprehension

Other research has demonstrated that there is a common effect produced on students when they are exposed to e-readers and e-books, though it is not necessarily the effect that educators might have hoped for. In several studies, results have shown that students' motivation to read increases significantly with the introduction of e-books and/or e-readers, even when the content of the books being read is the same as that available to the students in print form. It appears that this is due to the novelty of the e-book experience and in some cases to the appeal of the e-reader that has been generated by its manufacturer's advertising and other forms of media exposure. However, despite the laudable improvement in student motivation, these same studies show much lower levels of comprehension by the students using e-books, suggesting that the students were more interested in using the e-book and its interactive multimedia capabilities than they were in using a printed book, but that when it came to extracting meaning from what they were reading, they did not perform as well as students using paper books. These findings will have great relevance to manufacturers of e-books and e-readers, whom educators have urged to focus less on entertaining gimmicks designed to capture children's attention, and more on the cognitive psychology that describes how children learn and how that learning can be supported by technology.

Gender Bias

Another aspect of the way e-books may influence students' reading habits raises concerns not only of effectiveness but also of equity between genders. Research outside the field of e-books and literacy has tended to show that girls are more hesitant to experiment with new technologies such as those presented by e-readers and e-books, while boys tend to show greater enthusiasm for these pursuits. Without inquiring into whether this is due to environment and the effects of socialization or to some other factors, this insight suggests that when e-books are introduced into the curriculum, teachers and parents must do so with an awareness of the danger of girls falling behind in the adoption of the technology, and at the very least make special efforts to encourage all students to learn about the advantages and disadvantages of e-books. Interestingly, the effects of gender on e-books and vice versa may in some ways compensate for what has otherwise been a trend in the opposite direction: Ordinarily girls express more interest in reading and report spending more of their time each day reading than do boys.

E-books and Educational Outcomes: Impact on Libraries A common assumption is that as more and more educational institutions move to adopt e-readers and to convert their physical library collections to online repositories of e-books, there will be less need for physical libraries. The idea behind this notion is that because students will essentially be able to carry around all the books they could possibly need on their tablet computers or e-readers, it would be pointless to keep librarians around to shelve books that no one reads. Research suggests, however, that this conclusion may be somewhat premature.

Studies have shown, to the surprise of many, that there is not much correlation between the academic performance of a school's students and the size of the school's library. Further research, however, has shown that what does make a difference in the ability of students to excel academically is the availability of library staff and other instructors who are able to assist students with navigating the world of online information. Further, special education teachers and students with various impairments or disorders find additional resources in digital collections. Online libraries, such as Bookshare, take advantage of e-book features to provide increased accessibility for people with disabilities that prevent them from utilizing traditional, printed books.

Thus, what appears to produce the best outcome for students is not merely the conversion of print libraries to e-books, but the provision of instruction to the students in how to go about using e-books, print books, and other information sources to gather data, organize and evaluate it, and then synthesize it for their own understanding and to present it to others. In other words, the benefit of e-books seems to be the same benefit provided by print books. While e-books may be more effective at helping students interact with information and use it to their advantage, much of their attraction is derived from their novelty.

Viewpoints

E-books have been the subject of a great deal of hype in the media, and they do have some very real and important applications, particularly in serving disabled persons and in providing greater access to information to those of lower socioeconomic status. At the same time, it is important for schools to exercise caution in how e-books are used and in what expectations are created around that use. Projects that expect e-books to magically capture the attention of children and convert them into avid readers at a fraction of the cost of a well-stocked physical library are certain to result in disappointment.

On the other hand, initiatives that have a well-thought-out plan for how e-books will be used, what they are expected to accomplish, and why they are the best tool for the job, are much more likely to achieve their goals. Educators need to use their professional judgment and their knowledge of students' diverse learning modalities to select e-books that do not rely on distracting "eye candy" to enthrall children, but instead leverage the advantages of the e-book's multimedia platform to help children engage with a text without distracting them from that text. Once appropriate works have been selected, instructors' work is not over; they must also guide students through the process of learning to navigate the e-book.

Study after study has shown that e-books are not a "magic bullet" for defeating illiteracy. Students need their teachers' guidance and scaffolding with using e-books every bit as much as they need it in other types of activities. In the end, e-books are a type of tool—information delivery devices, just like books. They may be more versatile than books, as a single e-reader can hold many e-books while a traditional book only contains one literary work, but tools remain. E-books have great potential to help students learn, but only if teachers have the training and resources to help those students to do so.

Terms & Concepts

Bookshare: An online library of e-books formatted for use by people with print disabilities that prevent them from utilizing traditional, printed books. Bookshare operates under an exemption to U.S. copyright law that allows nonprofits to make books available to those with disabilities, without the need to acquire permission from the books' publishers or copyright holders.

E-reader: A handheld computer designed for use in storing and displaying e-books in one or more file formats.

Interactive multimedia: A system or device that allows a user to combine and experience elements that exist in different formats, including video, audio, print, and images. An advantage of e-books over traditional books that is often mentioned is their ability to support interactive multimedia, as when a passage of text contains a link to a video providing further information on the topic being discussed.

Total cost of operation (TOC): The total investment in e-books and e-readers, which includes expenses related to training users in how to get the most out of the device, as well as maintenance of the e-readers and e-books.

Bibliography

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E-books and Educational Outcomes

On this Page

Subject Terms

E-books and Educational Outcomes

Further Insights

Comprehension

Gender Bias

Viewpoints

Terms & Concepts

Bibliography

Suggested Reading