Running Head: CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF A SCHOLARLY ARTICLE

Critical Analysis of a Scholarly Article:

“Teaching and Learning Without a Textbook, Undergraduate Student Perceptions of Open

Educational Resources”

Ayman Alqasem and May Matti

California State University Monterey Bay

IST 520

Dr. Fischer

February 11, 2020

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CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Introduction

Hong Lin study (2019) “Teaching and Learning Without a Textbook: Undergraduate

students perceptions of Open Educational Resources” is about investigating the usage of Open

Educational Resources (OER) in introductory undergraduate courses instead of traditional

textbooks, and whether presenting the instructional materials by using the OER is aligned with

the open pedagogy. Previously, several studies investigated the use of e-Textbooks or partial

adoption of OER components. This study seeks to learn how students perceive their experience

differently when using only OER for learning. The data collected by Lin was analyzed

qualitatively to answer the two research questions:

● What advantages did students identify when using only OER in an undergraduate

introductory course?

● What challenges did students experience when using only OER in their learning

process?

This research examined data collected from 46 students in a large American public

university that uses only OERs in one of their introductory courses, where the course focuses on

both technology and OER integration in the lesson plans.

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CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Research Procedures

OERs vs. Textbooks

Although one of the stated objectives of the study is to measure the advantages of using

OERs over traditional textbooks, the study did not actually make any comparison between the

two. It only measured the effectiveness of OER usage. While OER usage might be effective, the

study failed to prove that it is more or less effective than traditional textbooks.

A suggested comparison would be dividing students into two groups where the first

group receives instruction through OERs while the second receives it through traditional

textbooks. After the course is concluded, an assessment is conducted and the performance of the

two groups is compared.

Not conducting such a comparison reveals a significant bias towards OERs. That fact

that using OERs is effective, does not necessarily mean that it is more effective than using

traditional textbooks.

The debate among educators and theorists on whether media adds pedagogical value to

instruction is not new. Many, including Richard Clark, believe that media are “mere vehicles

that deliver instruction but do not influence student achievement any more than the truck that

delivers our groceries causes changes in our nutrition” (Clark, 1983). This study is a valuable

contribution to this debate, but it is far from settling it, which is not its intention.
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CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Participants

Qualitatively, the participants were not diverse enough to answer the first research

question: “what advantages did students identify when using only OER in an undergraduate

introductory course?” (Lin, 2019, p. 2)

Forty-six students participated in the study. Except for one, all of them majored in

education-related majors, such as elementary, secondary, and health and physical education. The

one exception student majored in French.

This sample is extremely limited when compared to the wide, comprehensive, and broad

research question: “What advantages did students identify when using only OER in an

undergraduate introductory course?” Even if the study provides any evidence that the usage of

OERs has advantages, given the very limited sample, it can be only applied to students majoring

in education-related fields.

Participants Bias

In addition to the aforementioned bias demonstrated by the author, participants are also

biased, or at least have a conflict of interest.

Participants have a financial interest to support the integration of OERs. This bias was

not accounted for by the study. The study actually does not try to hide this bias, as it states: “For

this reason [the cost of traditional textbook], 84% of the 46 students who took the reflective

survey, and 88% of the 29 in the focus groups expressed overwhelming satisfaction with using

OER in place of a traditional textbook” (Lin, 2019, p. 2).

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CRITICAL ANALYSIS

In addition to the financial aspect, students have non-financial benefits from OERs. They

stated that using OERs saves them a significant effort. One of the participants stated that “it is

easier to get the homework done … I do not like dealing with textbooks and pens” (Lin, 2019, p.

9).

Both the financial savings and effort savings make the participants biased towards OERs.

While they are desirable outcomes, these factors are not pedagogical. The research does not

prove any pedagogical benefits to using OERs.

Research Results

Data were collected from 46 participants through an anonymous online survey (reflective

survey) which included four open-ended questions; in addition, to a demographic questionnaire.

Also, a second source of the data was two focus group interviews that included 29 out of 46

participants. The researcher conducted qualitative analysis; where, the data was coded and

recorded into themes. A descriptive analysis was used for each theme to reach the results.

Discussion of Results

The overall impression of the participants in this study is that they appreciated their

experience of OER and that they did not need any textbook during the course. The analysis of the

data identified the advantage and challenges of using OER as following:

Advantage of using OER only in the course:

a) Cost-saving: It was extremely satisfying to use OER instead of a conventional

textbook according to the students’ responses in both surveys.

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CRITICAL ANALYSIS

b) Dynamic and plentiful materials: appreciate diverse multi-media online services that

OER effectively enhanced student learning.

c) Mobile learning: Students’ perceived mobile learning is great means using OER

anywhere anytime if they have access to the computer.

d) Supporting OER Evaluation Skills and Understanding Copyrights: develop skills in

the evaluation and collection of reliable material online; helps students become more

knowledgeable about the copyright issue.

The challenge of adopting OER only in the course: In spite of the results of this study that

indicated that the majority of the students appreciated their experience, but at the same time

faced some challenges; which was coded and recorded as follow:

a) Lacking the tactile sense: when studying some students liked the touch of a book, and

it was easier for them to take notes on the book, and think that the OER is good to

supplement the course.

b) Internet accessibility: slow internet connection increased students’ frustration.

c) Instruction and guidance: Some students declared because of the broad scope of the

OER they needed more guidance from an instructor.

d) Self- Regulation skills and connected community: the study found that some of the

participants had difficulty to stay focused on the assignment and task and lacked self-

regulation skills.
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CRITICAL ANALYSIS

However, the aforementioned results were only based on participants reaction

towards replacing textbooks with the integration of OER in an introductory course, not

taking into consideration that the course integrated the use of blended instructions and

other technology resources. Moreover, the study did not clearly specify what type of

OER the participants were interested in the most. Even in the example given in the

article, the researcher mentioned there were other OERs used besides the TV, but the

results above did not distinguish any similarities or differences in the resources used and

generalized the finding that the participants appreciated the use of the OER in the course.

As one source of the data was the reflective survey questionnaire, which included four

questions:

1. Have you taken any course before in which teaching and learning occurred without a

traditional textbook?

2. What do you like about only using OER in teaching and learning?

3. Did the OER content in this course help you learn the same as textbooks would have?

4. What challenges did you experience with OER in your learning and assignments?

The data analysis discussed the findings of question one, two and four; but question three

was not covered and the data analysis did not go in-depth to check if the participants were

satisfied with the content presented through OER and did not measure the amount of knowledge

change took place by presenting the instructional material using OER.

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CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Summary

The study of using OER gave an idea about the impression of students of an

introductory course in a large American public university in using the OER only as a

resource of the instruction material. Previously other studies overlooked researching this

approach and focused on looking into the full adoption of e-Textbooks or partial adoption

of OER components.

The study had a limitation that the researcher addressed, which is represented by

the small sample number which prevents generalizing the findings. Also, the study miss

the following; first the findings did not cover the participants impression about the

content of the course; therefore, this could affect the participants’ stands towards the use

of the OER, especially, some of the participants lacked self-regulation skills. Secondly,

the study also did not take into consideration what other types of OERs were included in

the course and readiness of the participants to use such resources. Also, the results did not

reflect any age-difference preference among the participants which is a factor that could

play a big role in the findings.

Nonetheless, the study offered an opportunity to look more into the open

pedagogy methods, and the need to investigate in depth other factors that could affect the

findings.
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CRITICAL ANALYSIS

References
Clark, R. E. (1983). Reconsidering research on learning from media. Review of Educational
Research, 53(4), 445-449.
Lin, H. (2019). Teaching and Learning Without a Textbook: Undergraduate Student Perceptions
of Open Educational Resources. International Review of Research in Open and
Distributed Learning, 20.