ScholarWorks - 2009 Undergraduate Research and Scholarship Conference: The Relationship Between Student Textbook Preferences and Learning and Grade Orientations
Introductory psychology is one of the most populated courses in psychology departments nationally. Given this important learning opportunity for so many students, it would be beneficial to understand how textbook use is related to student attitudes about learning and grades. A key question of interest was to understand how student preferences for textbooks are related to their learning orientation and grade orientation. Once enrolled in our study, students were provided a link to an online Qualtrics survey where the textbook preferences were provided. In addition, students completed the LOGO to measure orientation (Milton, Pollio, & Eison, 1982) as well as other demographic items. LOGO results were correlated with each of the 9 subscales yielded by the textbook preferences instrument. Our interest was in those subscales in which there were positive correlations for both learning oriented attitudes and grade oriented attitudes. By identifying this pattern of results, we can better understand those factors that most widely appeal to a greater number of students. For each of the following subscales, we provide the correlation coefficient for the learning oriented attitudes (LOA) score and the grade oriented attitudes (GOA) score, respectively: like the book due to applicability and convenience, 0.41, 0.28; like the book due to its accessibility, 0.22, 0.24; use book for study aids, 0.39, 0.28; use book because of instructor use, 0.24, 0.19; use book because it is easy to use, 0.44, 0.38. All correlations were significant at p ≤ .01. Based on the results of this research, a textbook which encompasses the five key factors from above is more likely to appeal to a greater number of students; developers of introductory psychology textbooks may want to hold these five subscales ideas as paramount as they think about how to reach the widest number of students.