Effects of E-Textbooks on Student Mental Effort in an ESL Middle School
Classroom
Yungwei Hao
Department of Education
National Taiwan Normal University
Taiwan
hao@ntnu.edu.tw
Abstract: As e-textbooks have been increasingly used in K-12 classrooms, teachers
are more able to provide students with content materials with multimedia formats and
engage students in the learning process. The purpose of this study was to investigate
36 middle school students’ mental effort when students read e-textbooks
demonstrated by their teacher in an English-as-a-Second-Language classroom in a
middle school. The researcher used the framework of Paas’s survey to develop
survey items to measure the mental effort. The results indicated the students took
below-medium mental effort for searching for the pages and above-medium mental
effort for comprehending the book content. Besides, students’ personal
characteristics were examined to search for the association. The findings may shed
light on the effect of e-books on students’ cognitive load and provide educators with
some implications for e-textbook technology integration in the K-12 school settings.
Introduction
Because the popularity of e-book reading devices has emerged during the last few years,
e-books have been more and more accepted in the K-12 educational settings. Studies (i.e.,
Rao, 2003) have indicated electronic textbooks (abbreviated as e-textbooks in the following
sections) with helpful features may help students learn. E-textbooks can enhance student
involvement in class, which will reinforce the learning outcomes (Sun, Flores, and Tanguma,
2012). E-textbooks have been regarded as alternatives to the printed textbooks or even
predicted as the main format in the textbook market (Lees, 2011). Because e-textbooks have
the advantages of lower prices, convenience, portability (Chu, 2003), flexibility (Annand,
2008), searching the text by keywords (Chu, 2003), hyperlinking, highlighting, and note
sharing (Chu, 2003; Guess, 2008), integrating text with multimedia materials (Landoni, 2003;
Su, 2005; Sun, Flores, & Tanguma, 2012), publishers have offered support, and researchers
have been experimenting its feasibility to explore large adoption.
Cognitive load is the burden imposed on the student’s limited working memory in a learning
process (Sweller, 1998). Having appropriate cognitive load is important in the learning
process (Paas, 1992). Paas proposed cognitive load has two interrelated components: mental
load and mental effort. Mental load is the burden caused by tasks, and metal effort is the
capacity required by tasks. With the emergence of technology applications in education,
students often conduct learning tasks which need unknown mental effort. The purpose of this
study was to investigate middle school students’ mental effort when students read
e-textbooks demonstrated by their teacher in an English-as-a-Second-Language classroom.
The Study
Thirty-six students in an English-as-a-Foreign-Language middle school classroom in Taiwan,
participated in the study in Spring 2012. During the semester, the teacher demonstrated the
students the e-textbook content through the projector and instructed the class with the
e-textbook throughout the semester. In a word, the students had their printed textbook at hand,
and they had the e-textbook presented overhead. At the end of the semester, Paas’s Mental
Effort Scale was used for the students to assess their mental effort in the process. The
research participation was voluntary, and the students can withdraw anytime. The scale is a
self-rated numerical value based on a 9-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (very very low
mental effort) to 9 (very very high mental effort) (Paas, 1992). Studies (i.e., Ayres, 2006;
Paas, et al., 2008) have indicated the scale is valid and reliable and have been used in
numerous research studies.
Findings
15 girls and 21 boys made up the participants. All of them were able to access to computers
and to the Internet at home. 53% of the participants read e-books before; 47% had no
e-reading experience. 80.6% preferred being taught in e-textbooks. 83.3% disagreed or
strongly disagreed that e-textbooks are not helpful for their learning and that printed
textbooks and e-textbooks had no difference.
The results of this study identified the mental effort when the students read the e-textbook
content through the projector. Specifically speaking, 83.3% of the participants indicated they
took below-medium mental effort for searching for the pages (Mean=2.56, SD=1.68). 66.7%
indicated they took below-medium mental effort for searching for specific content
(Mean=3.58, SD=2.09). 47.2% indicated they made below-medium mental effort for reading
the digital content (Mean=4.17, SD=2.37). 50% indicated they had below-medium mental
effort for comprehending the content (Mean=4.50, SD=2.56). Among the mental efforts, the
task of comprehending the content significantly required the most mental effort, and the task
of searching for the pages significantly required least.
Regarding the association between the mental effort and personal characteristics, there was
some significant difference that girls needed lower mental effort than boys when searching
for the pages, t(34)=2.70, p<.05. No significant differences were found for other tasks. As for
other characteristics, for example, students’ foreign language beliefs (Horwitz, 1987), they
are being analyzed and will be presented together later.
Conclusions
The results of this pilot study indicated the mental effort imposed by e-textbooks in a middle
school classroom. Searching for pages required the least mental effort, but comprehending
the content required most. Besides, students’ personal characteristics are being examined to
search for the association. It is expected that the findings shed light on the effect of e-books
on students’ cognitive load and provide educators with knowledge of the individual
differences and with some implications for e-book technology integration in the K-12
learning environments.
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