MONROE — After a year of empirical data, a study has shown that biology students at Monroe Township High School learned more from the usage of iBooks than traditional textbooks.
Marcy Baughman, director of the Pearson Academic and Efficacy Research, which provided the iBook technology used at the high school, presented the Board of Education with the results of a yearlong study comparing the two types of learning. She said the study showed that students are better served using the iBook technology.
“The goal of the study was to look at whether print biology programs had a differential effect on student achievement [and] motivation, and teacher and student feedback when compared to an iBooks pro- gram,” she said.
“The students in the iBooks condition have learned significantly more than you’d expect over the course of the year.”
The study took place during the 2012-13 school year, involving approximately 150 students from both Monroe and a science and technology charter school in South Carolina.
The study focused on two biology classes taught by Tina Lambiase and Katharine Bruno.
“They each selected one section of their students to use their print biology program that you are currently using and one section of the students to the iBooks biology program,” Baughman said.
She said the student populations were similar to each other, allowing researchers to determine the impact of the different presentation styles and eliminating other variables that would impact student achievement.
The study used the Stanford Achievement Test as the standard measuring tool for student achievement.
“What we found in Monroe is the biology students scored in the 52nd percentile. At the end of the year, the students who used the text editions stayed at the 52nd percentile, and the students who had used the iBook had moved to the 60th percentile,” Baughman said.
“It is difficult for students to change percentile ranks over the course of a year unless they are doing something different. ”
Students in the classes also filled out questionnaires at the end of the study, which showed that the iBook learners were more motivated over the course of the year.
“What we found was that in Monroe the print biology students showed a slight decrease in motivation, where the iBooks students’ motivation stayed the same,” Baughman said. “What they shared with us is the interactive features of the iBooks did help to retain student interest and engagement.”
She attributed the motivational data to the prevalent use of pictures and videos in the iBooks.
“These are features that are unique to the iBooks in the sense that the pictures are interactive. You can zoom in on a picture, you can stop a video, fast forward,” Baughman said.
Of the students who used the iBooks, only 12 percent said they preferred using print books for biology.
While impressed with the results, Board of Education member Lew Kaufman said it must be cost-effective for the district to purchase and use the iBooks on a regular basis.
“I’m a big fan of using the public domain for a lot of information, as well,” he said. “If I need to learn cellular mitosis, I can get 50 sites in two seconds, and we can move along and move forward.
“We are very cognizant of being able to not only use iBook technology — we know that the technology works,” Kaufman added. “If you want us to keep buying technology from you guys, we need to start seeing costs start to drop.”
While cost is a factor, one advantage of the iBooks is that they can be updated every two to three years, while textbooks previously were only updated every eight to 10 years.