Introductory psychology students need supports to read and think in a discipline-specific way when learning psychology theories. We tested the effectiveness of using a task-model steps chart to help students understand, evaluate, and use theories presented in their introductory psychology textbook and lecture videos. We randomly assigned 52…

An undergraduate course in development economics presents an ideal opportunity to introduce students to the importance of gender differences in economic outcomes. The authors of this article argue that a systematic integration of gender into development economics courses based on standard textbooks is feasible and desirable. They provide a…

We seek to guide design, development, and adoption of Renewable Assignments by testing ways learners can contribute to Open Educational Resources (OER). We design, test, and iterate four assignment structures to this end. Testing was completed in an upper-division undergraduate endocrinology course, taught emergency remote due to COVID-19. Using…

The purpose of this study was to examine the use and cognitive load associated with Open Educational Resources (OERS) and Affordable Digital Textbook (ADT) among prelicensure Baccalaureate of Nursing students in an asynchronous on-line health policy course. OERS and ADT provide low student cost curriculum options for nursing faculty. The…

Literacy skills and behaviours of university-level students are of wide interest today. The research reported here fits in this tradition. It examines second-year psychology students' source use in a course taught through online distance learning (ODL). The number of sources used increased across assignments. Most used were the textbook,…

While textbooks serve as a primary source of content material and problem-solving practice for undergraduates in engineering, studies that investigate how engineering students prepare assignments based on textbook problems are limited. To examine how engineering students complete textbook-based assignments outside of class, this exploratory…

This study assessed the impact of an "active learning" strategy employed alone or in combination with traditional lectures on the learning of mammalian physiology by undergraduate students. The study investigated the impact of three teaching strategies, namely (1) traditional lecture, (2) group discussion alone, and (3) combination of…

This study compared student engagement and performance in both open educational resources (OER) (n[open textbook users fall 2018] = 72) and traditional textbook (n[traditional textbook users fall 2017] = 66) classes. Data were drawn from the Learning Management System (LMS). Results show (1) final grades in the OER class were on a par with the…

The importance of, and interest in, sustainability in management education has increased significantly over the past three decades. However, the definition of sustainability remains complex and elusive, thus creating significant issues for sustainability instruction, assignment design, and student learning. We reviewed definitions and use of…

Though there is little in the literature on the teaching of the history of English, criticism of textbooks which over-simplify "the" story as the rise of the standard variety has been more vocal of late. Meanwhile, some academics have argued for focusing teaching on the analysis of texts. This article reports on a unit/module taught at a…

The introductory psychology (Intro Psych) course is the bedrock of the psychology major and the front face of our discipline. The class not only provides a foundation for students in the major but also provides a comprehensive portrait of the discipline for nonmajors. Despite a sizable body of research focused on pedagogy related to the…

High-structure courses or flipped courses require students to obtain course content before class so that class time can be used for active-learning exercises. While textbooks are used ubiquitously in college biology courses for content dissemination, studies have shown that students frequently do not read their textbooks. To address this issue, we…

Human anatomy has usually been taught in a didactic fashion in colleges and universities. However, recent calls from United States governmental agencies have called for the transformation of undergraduate life sciences education to include active learning in the classroom. In addition, high structure courses have been shown to increase student…

A convenient cluster sample of 105 undergraduate students at a regional university in the midsouth completed a survey regarding their use of college textbooks, what strategies might increase the likelihood of their reading textbook assignments, and their preference for how class time was used. Descriptive analysis was conducted on the results and…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of using a content acquisition podcast (CAP) to teach phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, and phonics (PA) to preservice special education teachers. Fifty undergraduate preservice special education teachers over 2 years were randomly assigned to either the CAP group or a comparison group…