Junior High School Students’ Perspectives on Printed and Electronic Textbooks

Abstract

The study investigated junior high school students’ perspectives on printed and electronic textbooks. Even though there are many studies conducted in this area, the studies focus on examining university or college students’ perspectives (Abuloum et al., 2019; Adeyinka et al., 2018, Cumaoglu et al., 2013). Little research has been done to explore junior high school students’ perspectives. Thus, further investigation is needed. This study is a cross-sectional survey using a questionnaire adapted from Abuloum (2019) with 276 students completed the questionnaire. The results showed that printed textbooks were still preferred by the majority (54.7%) of the students. The ease of highlighting and taking notes as well as ease of use were the major reasons for students who preferred printed textbooks. For students preferring e-textbooks, the main reasons were the ease of access and searching. It could be concluded that, despite of the pervasiveness of digital technologies, the students still preferred using printed textbooks for learning. However, findings also indicated that e-textbooks were gaining popularity in the field of education with almost half (46.3%) of the students choosing e-textbooks. Since there is a growing interest in e-textbooks, teachers can help familiarize students to e-textbooks by showing the students how to use them and what their advantages. E-textbook developers can also use the findings as the basis for designing more attractive and appropriate e-textbooks for junior high school students.