Tech Savvy High School Students and Their Textbook Preferences

Abstract

As the world enters a digital era, schools have progressed electronically in numerous ways. The purpose of this study aimed to discover how tech-savvy high school students in an international school in Thailand responded to the technological shift in the introduction of eTextbooks. Quantitative research design and descriptive analysis were utilized in data analysis. 179 high school students participated in an electronic semi-structured questionnaire with results indicating the majority of the students preferred a combination of both eTextbooks and print textbooks. Print textbooks were more beneficial for students' learning, and students felt that print textbooks should not be replaced by eTextbooks. On the other hand, most of the students' experiences with eTextbooks were negative. Aside from agreeing and disagreeing with stated reasons for using and not using eTextbooks, students freely expressed their personal viewpoints on eTextbook usage. The information obtained from this study is invaluable to schools as they plan on replacing print textbooks with eTextbooks.