COMPARING TEXTBOOKS: WORDS, TERMS, AND STUDENT PREFERENCES

This preliminary study compares three different styles of textbook: a traditional textbook, a published innovative textbook, and a draft of a new style of innovative textbook that incorporates many similar strategies as the published innovative textbook, as well as additional cognitive learning findings (e.g. people can absorb only a small amount of new information at a time). The new textbook has simple diagrams, focused content, and cued placement of text and figures, which is particularly useful for diverse students primarily seeking to complete general education requirements.

For three equivalent textbook sections, we compared the total number of words, the number of geologic terms, and student preferences. The traditional and published innovative textbooks contain two to three times the number of words and three to four times the number of geologic terms than the new style textbook. Research indicates that a large amount of text and number of geologic terms increase the cognitive load on a student, with the risk of overloading it. To evaluate student preferences, eight two-year college students were given packets of color photocopied passages from these three different textbooks. Not knowing information about the three textbooks, including the authors, the students were asked to rank the textbook passages according to criteria such as ease of understanding, clarity of layout, communication of message, and preferred book to use. In all rankings, the students preferred the new style textbook. In their explanations, students liked the clarity and succinctness of the new textbook and, although some worried that it did not cover as much information, they stated that they would be more likely to read it.