This is a quick summary of John Hilton III's article published by Springer Nature February 19, 2016.
CONCLUSIONS OF HIS STUDY
Based on the 16 studies he analyzed, he concluded that researchers and educators may need to more carefully examine the rationale for requiring students to purchase commercial textbooks when high-quality, free and openly-licensed textbooks are available.
Because students and faculty members generally find that OER are comparable in quality to traditional learning resources, and that the use of OER does not appear to negatively influence student learning, he concluded one must question the value of traditional textbooks.
He posited that if the average college student spends approximately $1000 per year on textbooks and yet performs scholastically no better than the student who utilizes free OER, what exactly is being purchased with that $1000? That question was later researched in another study.
He added in the caveat that the results must be interpreted with caution however, for many reasons—one being that it is not clear how OER might have been used in each of the study's contexts.
OVERVIEW OF HILTON'S STUDY
Textbooks are a vital component in many higher education contexts. Increasing textbook prices, coupled with general rising costs of higher education have led some instructors to experiment with substituting open educational resources (OER) for commercial textbooks as their primary class curriculum.
His article synthesized the results of 16 studies that examined either (1) the influence of OER on student learning outcomes in higher education settings or (2) the perceptions of college students and instructors of OER.
Results across multiple studies indicated that students generally achieve the same learning outcomes when OER are utilized and simultaneously save significant amounts of money. Studies across a variety of settings indicate that both students and faculty are generally positive regarding OER.
METHOD:
The resource(s) examined in the study needed to be OER that were the primary learning resource(s) used in a higher education setting and be compared with traditional learning resources.
The research needed to have been published by a peer-reviewed journal, or be a part of an institutional research report or dissertation.
The research needed to have data regarding either teacher and/or student perceptions of OER quality, or educational outcomes.
METHOD, CONTINUED:
The study needed to have at least 50 participants.
The study needed clearly delineated results in terms of the numbers of research subjects who expressed opinions about OER and/or had their learning measured.
The study needed to have been published in English, and be published prior to October of 2015.
Hilton identified potential articles for inclusion based on three approaches.
One was to examine the literature cited in key efficacy and perceptions studies.
A second was to perform a search of the term “Open Educational Resources” on Google Scholar, which yielded 993 articles. Hilton said that many of these were easily excluded because based on the title or venue they clearly did not meet the above criteria. Those that appeared to have the potential for inclusion were read to determine whether they met the above-mentioned criteria.
The third and final approach was that he sent the studies he had identified to 246 researchers who had published on OER related topics and asked them if they were aware of additional studies that he had missed. The result of these approaches was the 16 studies discussed in his study.
At the time of Hilton's study, nine studies had been published that focused on analyzing student learning outcomes when OER are substituted for traditional textbooks in higher education settings. These nine studies were summarized and their overall results were synthesized by Hilton.
In terms of student and teacher perspective of OER, a total of 4510 students and faculty members were surveyed across nine studies regarding perceptions of OER. In no instance did a majority of students or teachers report a perception that the OER were less likely to help students learn.
LIMITATIONS
According to Hilton, the research designs discussed in his paper were insufficient to claim causality, and some were quite weak. Significant design flaws such as changing final exam metrics between comparison years or comparing different (rather than identical) courses severely curtail the usefulness of some of these studies. Likewise, a consistent problem with confounding the adoption of OER with a change in the delivery method (e.g., from traditional to blended learning) is an issue that needs to be addressed in future studies that attempt to determine the impact of OER adoption.
Credits:
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