Textbook merger could create more problems than just higher prices

(MENAFN- The Conversation) Ever since Cengage and McGraw-Hill Education – two of the largest textbook publishers in the U.S. – announcedplans to mergenext year, fears have arisen thatlack of competitionin America's textbook industry will lead to higher textbook prices for students.

Indeed, Cengage and McGraw-Hillcurrently controlabout 24% and 21% of the textbook market, respectively, while Pearson – the other giant in America's textbook industry - controls about 40%. If the merger goes through, that means just two companies would control over 80% of U.S. textbook sales, placing control over future price hikes in even fewer hands.

This is particularly troublesome when you consider the fact that since 2000, textbook prices have alreadyrisen 146%- far above the rate of inflation.

As ascholarwho studies how students read and learn usingprint versus digital texts , I see other potential issues with the proposed textbook company merger that could harm students in more ways than just forcing them to pay more for their course readings.

The first issue concerns choice – both for students and faculty.

Thanks to the growth of e-books andonline courses , traditional print books are already beingincreasingly replacedbydigital materials .

Consequently, as publishers move to phase out print, students aren't just getting their course materials from the college bookstore. For instance, several of the largest publishers, including Cengage and McGraw-Hill, have created an'inclusive access'model. In this model, students are charged a course fee by the college or university they attend, and their school then pays the publisher in return for digital materials.

In 2017, Cengage createdCengage Unlimited , offering students digital access to any of its books for less than US$200 a year. While on the one hand this might seem like a convenience, it basically locks faculty into books published only by Cengage – which precludes faculty selecting other books.

An even more dramatic change is the new'digital first'policy that Pearson announced in July. Under this digital first policy, Pearson will largely focus on creating and updating digital materials going forward. Consequently, there will be fewer new editions of print textbooks, and when they do appear, their prices will berelatively high .

With digital, students don't actually buy books butlicense them , meaning they never own them, just as you don't own any digital software. That means students can't shop for a lower-priced copy of a digital book, and they can't sell the digital book at the end of the semester.

Understandably, publishersdislikethe used book market, since they profit only fromfirst sale of new books .

If the merger goes through, selling back used textbooks will be less common – and to the detriment of student choice. With print, if students purchase a textbook, they may choose to sell it when the course ends. They also might buy a used copy initially, saving them money. These options disappear in a digital environment.

But there is a second critical issue with shifting from print to digital. And that iswhether students learn betterusing print or digital textbooks.

In two international studies of university students – including oneI conductedand another led byDiane Mizrachi– students overwhelmingly said they learn better with print. My colleagues and I got the same response for a study we did with middle and high school students in Norway. In all three studies, students complained they become distracted when reading digitally.

Ananalysisof several studies on the topic concluded that overall, students performed better in answering questions about a reading passage if they read it in print, not digitally. However, these findings sometimes depend on the kind of questions asked or the amount of time students spend doing the reading.

Researchers Patricia Alexander and Lauren Singer Trakhman have shown thatstudents do equally well with print and digitalwhen questions ask about the main idea in a passage. However, if students are asked for more detailed key points, students do better in print. Ironically, if you ask those same students about the medium on which they think they had higher scores, they say digital – even though the opposite is true.

Time also matters. For instance, researchers in Israelfoundthat if people get a set amount of time to read, they score comparably in print and digital. However, if students can choose how much time to take, they tend to read faster and do worse on the comprehension exam.

There might be little that can be done about the continuing shift from print to digital in the textbook industry. But students can be encouraged to study more strategically in a digital environment. Some ideas include employing traditional reading strategies such as identifyingkeywords , summarizing and note-taking. Researchers are alsoexperimentingwith having students do exercises to encourage making inferences about the text, rather than reading only for surface information.

As the educational reading landscape becomes overwhelmingly digital, I believe it will become more important to find proven strategies to help students become more aware of the best ways to read and study online – especially as regular printed textbooks gradually begin to disappear.

[ Deep knowledge, daily.Sign up for The Conversation's newsletter . ]

Textbooks
US higher education
higher ed attainment

MENAFN1909201901990000ID1099025455

Legal Disclaimer:
MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.