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ERIC Number: EJ1491735
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025
Pages: 28
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1360-2357
EISSN: EISSN-1573-7608
Available Date: 2025-06-10
Has the Tablet Beaten Textbooks? Effect of Key Tool Features on Student Satisfaction
Ruwen Tian1; Jingjing Tong1; Zhiyin Li1; Sue Abdinnour2; David Jingjun Xu1
Education and Information Technologies, v30 n15 p21953-21980 2025
As digital learning tools continue to reshape education, the debate over their effectiveness compared with traditional textbooks remains unresolved. This study provides fresh insights by examining how important feature-level factors--portability, navigability, and visual appearance--shape users' confirmation and satisfaction with iPads and textbooks. Through a within-subject experiment conducted in a real classroom setting, 82 undergraduate students enrolled in an operations management course at a U.S. public university participated in a two-phase study over two weeks. To ensure ecological validity, students used either an iPad or a traditional textbook to solve decision science problems in their regular classroom environment before switching to the other tool in the second phase. At the end of each phase, participants completed a questionnaire assessing their perceptions of the tools and their learning experiences. This study's findings challenge the intuitive belief that digital tools are always better than traditional ones. Furthermore, this study systematically examines the advantages and limitations of each tool regarding their detailed features, thus deepening the understanding of their role in digital learning adoption. This research offers a comparative analysis of electronic and traditional educational tools, which will provide insights for optimizing electronic education and responding to the changing landscape of learning technologies.
Springer. Available from: Springer Nature. One New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, NY 10004. Tel: 800-777-4643; Tel: 212-460-1500; Fax: 212-460-1700; e-mail: customerservice@springernature.com; Web site: https://link.springer.com/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1City University of Hong Kong, Department of Information Systems, College of Business, Hong Kong, China; 2Barton School of Business, Wichita State University, Wichita, USA