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Student perceptions on future components of electronic textbook design

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Abstract

Electronic textbooks have been a subject of research for decades, yet student perceptions of interface components tend to be investigated in hindsight, and findings are not commonly taken into consideration for textbook design. This paper shifts the focus of electronic textbook design back toward students by identifying components that should be included in future electronic textbooks based on student perceptions in relation to the task of academic reading, as well as identifying associations with gender, experience level, academic level, and academic discipline. Findings from a university-wide online questionnaire that received more than 700 responses indicated that text, highlighting tools, bookmarks, multimedia, translation tools, dictionaries, and encyclopedias should all be incorporated in future electronic textbooks, as well as provided evidence to suggest that electronic textbooks should be tailored based on academic discipline. Understanding what students require for academic reading can facilitate the development of more suitable educational tools, and through the identification of suitable components, can enable the design of more standardized electronic textbooks.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Hong Kong Fellowship Scheme (1-904Z).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, V602h, Jockey Club Innovation Tower, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR

    Kimberly Anne Sheen & Yan Luximon

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  1. Kimberly Anne Sheen
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  2. Yan Luximon
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Correspondence to Yan Luximon.

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Sheen, K.A., Luximon, Y. Student perceptions on future components of electronic textbook design. J. Comput. Educ. 4, 371–393 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40692-017-0092-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40692-017-0092-7

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