E-BOOK AND UNDERGRADUATES’ LEARNING OF STATISTICS: A MALAYSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Universities are trending toward electronic books (e-books) as instructional materials, gradually displacing the traditional print books. However, there seems to be an incomplete body of knowledge on which e-books presentation formats students prefer, particularly when learning statistics. This paper reports the findings of a research conducted to investigate the effects of three e-book formats namely, text and static image (T&S), text and animation (T&A) and text and multimedia (T&M) on student achievement in a first year undergraduate statistics unit at a private university in Malaysia. The e-book used in this study was designed and developed based on Clark and Mayer’s (2011) multimedia principles and Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning. The findings showed that the use of the different e-book formats had significant effect on student achievement in the statistics unit. The students using the T&A and T&M e-book formats as instructional materials had higher scores in the unit assessment compared to those using the T&S e-book format. In addition, positive learning experiences and higher preferences for using the e-books were also reported by the students using the T&A and T&M e-book formats. These findings indicate that aspects of e-book design need to also be considered when adopting e-book as instructional materials for learning.