Monday, October 24, 2011

Student Success: The True Price of Expensive Textbooks

Tanya Roscorla details a Psychology Professors' discovery of the true cost expensive textbooks. A third of the class doesn't buy the book, searches Google for answers to the take-home midterm, copied and pasted, got the answer wrong – and failed the mid-term.

U. of Cincinnati Searches for Affordable Psychology eTextbooks:

In an advanced University of Cincinnati class, associate professor of psychology Charles Ginn assigned a take-home midterm.

Two questions on the test asked students to relate the material they studied to their lives. The third question was objective.

In PowerPoints, Ginn clearly covered what they needed to know to answer the question. And he told them what page they needed to study in the textbook.

But 30 percent of the students gave the same wrong answer that had nothing to do with the coursework. Ginn asked the class what happened. A student cautiously raised his hand. "I googled," he said.

They copied and pasted an answer without reading it because they couldn't afford expensive textbooks. As a result, they got an "F" on the midterm. And Ginn started thinking about textbooks.

At the University of Cincinnati, Ginn is leading a team this fall that's searching for more cost-effective textbooks for "Introduction to Psychology" courses.

 

 

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