Pitkin 1

Benjamin Pitkin

Professor Brooks

English 167

12th December 2017

English 167 I-Search

Introduction

Before I began my research, I already knew a good amount about eBooks from my own

personal experience. In 2011, my familys house was struck by lightning and started on fire. The

damage was primarily in my room, and among other things, I lost many of my books to smoke

and water damage. One of my mothers coworkers knew this, and knew how much I loved to

read, and gave me her Kindle so I could have books to read. Since then, I have read eBooks on

e-readers, phones, computers, and tablets for both personal enjoyment, and academic reasons.

I knew about the various eBook specific features on the devices I use, like searching,

highlighting, and sharing passages. I knew that you read different eBook formats differently,

and use different devices differently. For example, reading a Kindle eBook vs a PDF eBook, or

reading with a Kindle e-reader vs the Kindle app on a phone. However, most of what I knew was

about the usability and accessibility of eBooks. Even though I knew about eBooks themselves,

and how they affected my reading habits personally, I did not know anything about how they

affected learning, especially when compared to traditional hardcopy books.

I found this topic interesting because I get as many of my school books in eBook form as

I can due to their portability, multi-device capability, and price. This semester alone I have ten
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different eBooks for my classes, and if getting my books in this format have the possibility to be

a detriment to my learning, that is something I should be aware of.

This topic is relevant to my time at NDSU because, as I have already stated, I use eBooks

for my classes, and having a better understanding of the medium can help me better

understand how to best utilize them, and increase my learning potential.

Research Log and Methods

Search Terms Search Engine Used Findings

E-Book Wikipedia Mostly general information about them.

An explanation of what an eBook is, the
history of eBooks, different formats, how
they are produced, data collection on
eBooks, a comparison to printed books,
and the market share of eBooks. The
section comparing eBooks to printed
books has some references that may be
useful, as does the section on data
gathered.

eBooks Google The first couple pages are either sites

with information about eBooks, or places
to buy them. Interestingly, the Wikipedia
entry is not a result until the second
page.

eBooks Bing/Yahoo Results are basically the same as the

Google results
eBooks Google Scholar Some results looking at eBooks
themselves, but also results for
works/article available in an eBook
format.

eBooks NDSU Herd Search Some potentially useful articles.

However, there are some that are not
relevant at all.
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eBooks and Google The most useful source of articles for my

learning/how eBooks research. While a lot of opinion pieces
affect learning did come up, some of them referenced
scholarly articles, and the search also
returned a number of research papers
from universities.
eBooks and Google Scholar Some useful results, however, most of
learning/how eBooks the results came from the word
affect learning learning in the search bar and not
eBooks, so they were not helpful for
my research. A lot of the results were
also about extremely specific situations.

eBooks and NDSU Herd Search No results/no relevant results

learning/how eBooks
effect learning

For this assignment, I began by making a simple search for eBooks on Google, Bing,

and Yahoo, and reading the Wikipedia article on them. The search engine results were all

similar, with some websites with general information about eBooks, but mostly links to buy

them. I did find it interesting that the Wikipedia article was on the second result page of

Google, when normally, if there is a Wikipedia article for a search term, it is one of, if not the

first results. The Wikipedia article had the expected general information about eBooks, with an

explanation of what they are, their history, different formats they can take, what data is

collected by them, a comparison of eBooks to printed books, and the market share of eBooks.

Most of the information here was information I already knew, but there were some potentially

good sources cited.

A Google Scholar search for eBooks was a mixed bag. Some articles were extremely

pertinent, if a bit old, like the article Usability and usefulness of eBooks on PPCs: How

students' opinions vary over time, but some had less relevance, and some none at all.
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Searching the NDSU library for the term eBooks also yielded mixed results. There were some

articles that were relevant to my research, some that were simply titled eBooks, and some

that had no relevance whatsoever, like the article titled Escherichia coli O157:H7 in ground

beef review of a draft risk assessment.

Searching for eBooks and learning and eBooks effect on learning on Google and

Google Scholar yielded the best results. While there were still some irrelevant results, there

were also many research papers, or articles referencing research papers. Surprisingly, the same

search terms on the NDSU library yielded no useful information. Searching eBooks and

learning returned no results, and eBooks effect on learning returned no relevant results.

Research Findings

While personal opinion on eBooks may differ, research shows that they can be equal to,

or even surpass conventional paper books in learning effectiveness. Dr. Anne Niccoli in her

article Paper or Tablet? Reading Recall and Comprehension, presents the results of her study

comparing the learning of a group who used tablets to read to a group who read paper copies

of material. She says, Results did not show a statistically significant difference in group means

between paper and tablet readers. Other studies support this conclusion, reporting no

difference in cognitive learning or final grades (Bennet 265.) when comparing users of e-

textbooks and print textbooks.

However, some studies provide different results. According to a study done by Ali

Biranvand and Ali Akbar Khasseh the there is a meaningful difference in

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academic progress between the students of virtual and conventional programs. In other words,

use of electronic books by the virtual students causes them to make further academic progress,

and there is a meaningful difference between the two groups in this regard. This statement is

supported by other research. A study done by Cayley Reid showed that eBooks have the

greater impact on helping students reading comprehension skills (63).

While eBooks themselves may be superior to paper books, there is a potential for the

digital devices used to read the eBooks to have a detrimental effect on learning. According to

Dr. Anne Niccoli, collectively, results suggest that students engage in different learning

strategies that might short-circuit comprehension when interfacing with digital devices

compared to print. Niccoli offers up evidence from other studies claiming that people who use

eBooks are more likely to search for keywords in the text, and were more likely to read the

document once, and in less depth. Other studies she quotes shows that students with e-

textbooks are 59% more likely to multitask than students using print copies. Niccoli says that

taken together, these studies point to adaptive habits and cognitive shortcuts while using

technology even though learning is the primary objective.

Discussion and Conclusion

Overall, there is no clear consensus on the effect of eBooks. Studies show that eBooks

themselves are beneficial to learning, but the devices required to use them have numerous

potential downsides which can directly affect learning. As the effect of these downsides will

vary from person to person, there isnt a clear statement endorsing or condemning eBooks.

However, it is clear that they have both benefits, and potential downsides. I think that it would
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be interesting to see eBooks on a e-reader, that is designed for reading books, with the only

distraction on it being other books, and a different device, like a tablet or a computer where

there are a plethora of other activities and distractions to effect ones reading and learning. In

writing this paper, I cannot say I learned much about doing research, as this is similar to

projects I have done before. I did not learn much about eBooks either, as I knew most of the

potential downsides and upsides of them already, and with the lack of a consensus between

research, I am no further than when I started. Reading through multiple large research papers

only to not have a clear answer by the end is frustrating, and even though the research I looked

at was similar, there were enough differences between them that all their results seem valid to

me. I did not learn much about We Need New Names itself. I had already made use of the

features of my eBook version, like the search, highlight and note functions, and I had already

experienced the downsides of it, like being distracted by a notification while reading on my

computer. I am only one person, so I cannot conduct a research study on myself to see if I learn

the same material better electronically or on a printed copy. For now, I will continue to make

use of eBooks, until I am able to find definitive proof that I should, or should not be using them.

One class that could help me learn more about the topic of eBooks is English 457: Electronic

Communication. As books are a form of communication, and eBooks are (obviously) electronic,

I assume the class is at least somewhat relevant to them, or if not, I could learn about other

types of electronic communication. Another class that could help me learn more about this

topic is English 449: Usability and User Experience. In this class I could look at the usability of e-

reading apps or websites through research, or look at eBooks themselves to try and determine

what benefit in usability they have over printed copies. Three more classes related to eBooks
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are English 213, 313, and 413, Literary Publications I, II, and III respectively. While these classes

deal with creating a printed book, they would still help me learn about how books are put

together and created.

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Works Cited

Biranvand, Ali and Khasseh, Ali Akbar, "E-book Reading and its Impact on Academic Status of

Students at Payame Noor University, Iran" (2014). Library Philosophy and Practice (e-

journal). 1170.

Jones, John. How Does Electronic Reading Affect Comprehension? DML Central, 5 Nov. 2013.

Web.

Niccoli, Anne. Paper or Tablet? Reading Recall and Comprehension. EDUCAUSEreview,

EDUCAUSE, 28 Sept. 2015.

Reid, Cayley, "eBooks and Print Books Can Have Different Effects on Literacy Comprehension"

(2016). Education Masters. Paper 325.

Szapkiw, Amanda J. Rockinson-, et al. Electronic versus traditional print textbooks: A

comparison study on the influence of university students learning. Computers & Education,

vol. 63, Nov. 2012, pp. 25.

Zax, David. This Is Your Brain on E-Books. MIT Technology Review, MIT Technology Review, 12

Apr. 2013. 9266. Web.