USG Teaching & Learning Conference 2016

Wednesday Afternoon OER Pecha Kucha Session
Presentation 5

Rhonda Armstrong, Melissa Johnson

There have been many studies analyzing students' use of electronic texts, with mixed results. Some experts believe that students prefer electronic texts and perform better with such; others state that there is not enough deep comprehension of the materials available online to benefit students and that print format is best. However, most of the studies on the use of electronic texts are related to courses other than those that are literature-based. The recent trend to move into the electronic domain has not yet been fully adopted in the literature classroom. The presenters are conducting a study to see how students engage with digital text in an American Literature survey course. In this presentation, they will discuss the particular challenges and opportunities associated with using freely accessible electronic texts in literary studies, along with preliminary impressions from their study of student attitudes toward and engagement with those texts.