Professors Worry About the Cost of Textbooks, but Free Alternatives Pose Their Own Problems

When it comes to textbooks, faculty members have a lot of feelings. Many of them negative. But their thoughts on digital coursework and openly licensed materials aren’t any less conflicted.

These opinions, found in “Freeing the Textbook: Educational Resources in U.S. Higher Education, 2018,” a survey of more than 4,000 faculty members and department chairs released Wednesday, paint a complex picture of a fast-changing landscape, one in which instructors and students have more options about course materials than ever before, yet the best path forward remains unclear.

This is the fourth such survey done by the Babson Survey Research Group, and it captures some key trends. More than 60 percent of faculty members believe the cost of course materials is a serious concern for students. Because of that, many instructors say they control costs by encouraging students to buy used textbooks, putting copies in the library, choosing less expensive material, or assembling their own coursework. And while more than 80 percent are satisfied with the accuracy of textbook content, that doesn’t stop them from making changes: presenting material in a different order, skipping it entirely, and substituting different content at times.

The open-educational-resources movement, commonly known as OER, is an effort to encourage academics to use open-licensed materials in their classrooms as a way to lower costs. Some nonprofits, like OpenStax, have produced textbooks based on this material. The survey shows that OER has made inroads: 22 percent of people who teach introductory courses, subjects in which free textbooks are most commonly available, use it as required material, up from 15 percent last year.

Yet the percentage of faculty members who say they will use, or consider using, open materials in the next three years actually dropped slightly, with the numbers now at 6 percent and 32 percent respectively.

Faculty comments illustrate the range of feelings professors have about textbooks, digital coursework, why students avoid buying textbooks, and how students best learn.

First, there’s no shortage of antipathy for the traditional textbook.

I detest traditional textbooks. I really believe students should be pushed intellectually and most textbooks are just far too over-produced and try to do too much. From what I can see students fail to even crack them open because they are dull or too simplistic. Or, when they do open them it is only in courses where they are memorizing content and not really engaging in deep thought.

The ye olde textbook is really not that useful when it is so easy for me to author my own handouts and assign articles and videos, especially since we have access to Kanopy with an amazing selection of videos.

Textbook prices remain a deep concern for many instructors. About 80 percent say the cost of teaching materials is important or very important in their selection process.

There is NO justification for the ridiculously excessive costs of textbooks after multiple editions. This ongoing racket takes advantage of students to simply boost publisher profits way beyond what is fair and reasonable. Has always left a very foul taste in my mouth.

For the first time, the survey also asked about online homework systems and inclusive access subscriptions, adaptations to an increasingly digital and on-demand culture. In the survey, 37 percent of instructors said they require students to use an online homework system, but only 7 percent use subscriptions.

Asked why students don’t have access to textbooks, 52 percent of faculty members say cost is the primary factor. Yet a significant minority — 38 percent — believe students don’t buy textbooks because they don’t think they need them.

There is a new attitude among my students that textbooks aren’t essential to their understanding of the course content. My students feel if I am not reading the textbook to them directly (via a lecture) what is the point of buying it.

The average cost of a cell phone per major semester is about $700.00. In my opinion, textbooks are affordable by comparison. Plus, textbooks are a necessity in order to do well in class, whereas cell phones are a discretionary expense.

Attitudes toward digital material are also mixed. One faculty member called it “a win-win for students and publishers,” but others noted that students seem to still prefer print.

And although the preference among faculty members for digital materials is now higher than their preference for print — a flip since last year — some faculty members have a strong antipathy toward digital.

Digital is directly related to the dumbing down of college classes. Students need to read carefully, take notes and do their work. You will not change the several thousand years of learning how to learn with digital books. Digital is hurting humanity and the future. Wake Up!

I think it’s still very important that students have printed versions of texts required in my literature courses, since “close reading” is the central skill we practice at each meeting. Studies have been done that show students reading poorly online; this is true for me as well.

Faculty members also hold a wide variety of views on open educational resources, or OER. Some are all in.

I think it’s best for students to keep required costs for a course as low as possible, especially given the access to open-source materials that currently exists today.

Others are torn between what they view as choice between cost and quality.

I use a free open textbook but have deep concerns about the quality of the text and am considering moving back to a higher-cost textbook. When I have used a higher-cost in the past, more students had difficulty affording the book, but the class as a whole showed greater mastery of the material.

One faculty member even raised the idea that open-resource materials were creating a two-tiered system that could harm lower-income students.

OER is not closing the achievement gap for underserved populations in math. A product like Pearson offers much more powerful resources, metrics, and both student and instructor use advantages compared to any OER courseware availability in math.

Several instructors point out that the challenge is sometimes not with textbooks themselves but with the lack of related materials and updated texts.

I use open educational resources in the courses for which I am the sole instructor so that the cost to my students is zero dollars if they choose digital access and $25 if they choose the print version of the textbook. Others at my institution are unwilling to consider converting the major’s biology courses to OER because of lack of availability of quality ancillary materials as well as fears about edition updates.

The authors, Julia E. Seaman and Jeff Seaman, of the Babson Survey Research Group, end on a cautionary note: “While we see no diminishing among the proportion of teaching faculty who report that they will or are willing to consider OER that would indicate that the growth might end, we also do not see any increased enthusiasm among these same faculty that would indicate increases levels of growth.”

Jeff Seaman, director of the group, said in an email that a “perceived lack of quality options” is holding back growth in OER usage. But given widespread concerns among faculty members about textbook costs, he added, institutionwide initiatives to use or expand these offerings could make a difference.

Beth McMurtrie writes about technology’s influence on teaching and the future of learning. Follow her on Twitter @bethmcmurtrie, or email her at beth.mcmurtrie@chronicle.com.