The role of textbooks and other teaching and learning resources in higher education in Australia: change and continuity in supporting learning

Autores/as

  • Mike Horsley Central Queensland University
  • Bruce Knight
  • Helen Huntly Central Queensland University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21344/iartem.v3i2.787

Palabras clave:

Higher education, textbooks, e-learning, teaching and learning resources, typology on integration, assessment in higher education

Resumen

This paper investigates the role of textbooks and online learn ng resources in university study. In a large scale Australian research project the course coordinators and lecturing staff of twelve university courses were interviewed to elicit data on the resources that are prescribed to support student learning, the role of textbooks in teaching and learning; resource shifts between online and paper based resources; and the links between assessment and learning resources. The paper also reports on the student perspective of similar issues from students involved in sample of twelve undergraduate university courses. The research presented here reveals that textbooks produced by commercial publishers were recommended in every university course. Furthermore the use of these textbooks reflects a typology of integration into the learning design of the course to support student learning. The research found that a resource shift to the sole recommendation of online resources was not occurring, and that the provision of these online and digital resources was complementary and designed to support traditional learning resources.
Regarding student use of learning resources, the research concluded that students indicated that they are time-poor and as a consequence, their capacity to engage fully with all learning resources recommended by course coordinators and tutors is limited. Although students did listen to the messages about learning resources conveyed by their tutors, their motivation was driven by the demands of their course assessment and as a result, students prioritised their focus on specific resources. The resources at the top of the priority list related specifically to successful completion of assessment tasks.

Biografía del autor/a

  • Mike Horsley, Central Queensland University

    Mike Horsley is the director of LTERC at CQUniversity and vice-president of IARTEM. He has been the chief judge of the AAEEP since 1994 and was the founder of the awards. He is well-known amongst Australian educational publishers.

  • Bruce Knight

    Associate Professor Mike Horsley, Professor Bruce Knight and Associate Professor Helen Huntly are a research team from Central Queensland University, conducting a number of studies into the ecology of learning for students and teachers in university study. Their focus has been to explore the way that changes in e-learning influence the entire learning ecology in university study.

    Contact: Bruce Knight
    Central Queensland University PO Box 1128
    Noosaville BC 4566 Queensland
    +61 41 8413855

  • Helen Huntly, Central Queensland University

    Associate Professor Mike Horsley, Professor Bruce Knight and Associate Professor Helen Huntly are a research team from Central Queensland University, conducting a number of studies into the ecology of learning for students and teachers in university study. Their focus has been to explore the way that changes in e-learning influence the entire learning ecology in university study.

    Contact: Helen Huntly
    Central Queensland University PO Box 1128
    Noosaville BC 4566 Queensland
    +61 41 8413855

Descargas

Publicado

2011-01-03

Número

Vol. 3 Núm. 2 (2010)

Sección

Peer-reviewed research articles

Licencia

Derechos de autor 2011 Mike Horsley, Bruce Knight, Helen Huntly

Creative Commons License

Esta obra está bajo una licencia internacional Creative Commons Atribución-NoComercial-SinDerivadas 4.0.

Content published in IARTEM e-journal is – unless otherwise is stated – licensed through Creative Commons License CC BY-SA 4.0. Content can be copied, distributed and disseminated in any medium or format under the following terms:

Attribution: You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

ShareAlike: If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.

No additional restrictions: You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

Notice: No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material.

Authors who publish in IARTEM e-journal accept the following conditions:

Author(s) retains copyright to the article and give IARTEM e-journal rights to first publication while the article is licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY-SA 4.0. This license allows sharing the article for non-commercial purposes, as long as the author and first publishing place IARTEM e-journal are credited.

The author is free to publish and distribute the work/article after publication in IARTEM e-journal, as long as the journal is referred to as the first place of publication. Submissions that are under consideration for publication or accepted for publication in IARTEM e-journal cannot simultaneously be under consideration for publication in other journals, anthologies, monographs or the like. By submitting contributions, the author accepts that the contribution is published online in IARTEM e-journal.

Cómo citar

Horsley, M., Knight, B., & Huntly, H. (2011). The role of textbooks and other teaching and learning resources in higher education in Australia: change and continuity in supporting learning. IARTEM E-Journal, 3(2), 43-61. https://doi.org/10.21344/iartem.v3i2.787