Is it REALLY All That? The Impact of the Digital Textbook in Introductory Political Science Classes

In recent years, great enthusiasm has been expressed about the benefits of the digital textbook, which is capturing more and more of the academic book market. However, questions remain about the extent to which e-textbooks actually improve educational outcomes, especially with respect to the impact for students in political science. Using a quasi-experimental design employed in introductory political science courses, this research begins to address these limitations by directly assessing the impact of the online text platform on several different educational outcomes. The results indicate that the digital format has a positive impact on both students’ self-report of engagement with the textbook and on reading compliance levels, although a student’s interest in politics was found to be an important mediating factor. Text format is not a significant predictor for most measures of academic performance, although assignment of the e-textbook is associated with substantially lower average course grades. Greater student involvement with supplemental resources provided by the digital platform, however, has a strong and positive impact on performance on all learning measures. The results therefore suggest that if students are properly encouraged or required to interact with the digital text platform, the benefits of using the e-textbook outweigh the potential drawbacks.