Student Textbook and Course Material Survey

Abstract

The average cost of college textbooks has risen dramatically over the last decade, contributing to textbook price inflation and students’ inability to access the same educational resources. Open Educational Resources (OER) allow teaching, learning and research materials to be open to the public in any medium under a family of copyright licensing policies. Openly licensed course materials can be equally accessed by all students on the first day of classes and are often low or no cost. As students ourselves and workers with the on campus OER team, we constructed a Student Textbook Survey and explored the data to better understand the effects of textbook cost on students at Oneonta. The survey contains 21 questions that range from textbook accessibility, cost and purchasing logistics. Data is still being collected, and so far, our findings indicate the average amount of money spent on textbooks is ~$100-$300 each semester. A majority of student respondents indicated that they did not purchase/rent the required textbook for a course in the past. Students also informed us that throughout their entire college career approximately 5 books were purchased but then were not used in the course. This baseline survey analysis is a push for open educational resources to improve the OER initiative based on how students are affected by textbook costs.