Shifting Media and Materials Use: Research Findings in Context

By Sari Follansbee, Ed.D.
President, EdTech Design Associates

K-12 market research — affirmation? illumination?

We may be looking to confirm what we are seeing: digital media and materials increasingly interwoven in K-12 education. Surveys and studies demonstrate the rising use and effectiveness of new and emerging technologies in our schools (and our businesses). Naturally, we cite them in support of “going digital.” Moving beyond affirmation, we would like to better understand the playing field. In addition to focusing on the “technologies,” we can use comparative data, observing the new in relation to the traditional, textbooks in relation to supplemental, digital equivalents of print products in relation to Web 2.0 solutions, all on the same scale. The dynamics at play are illuminated when we place research findings in context.

Consider a data point from the recent survey report Ed Tech from the Trenches — 44 percent of respondents give high-use ratings to digital textbooks. Is this good or bad, a thumbs-up for business decisions or not?

Here’s some context. Print textbooks get high-use ratings from 56 percent of all survey participants. How does this affect your evaluation of the 44 percent rating for digital textbooks? What about when you hear that 64 percent of the same educator group gives high-use ratings to computer courseware? Comparing the three findings reveals a clearer picture.

Year-to-year and position-group analyses provide additional insight into materials use in the classroom. High-use ratings of teachers (and tech coordinators) increased from 2006 to 2007.

• print textbooks up 4 percent (4 percent)
• digital textbooks up 11 percent (11 percent)
• computer courseware up 19 percent (16 percent)

There are larger increases for the digital than the print curriculum, with the steepest rise in high-use ratings for computer courseware. (See the chart below.)

Teachers have the most dramatic shift, going from a spread of 22 percent between print textbooks and computer courseware in 2006 to a 7 percent difference in 2007.

The context — provided by the three types of core curriculum plus the year-to-year and position-group comparisons — reveals harder-to-find relational information for decision-making. We can back up our speculations on the importance of “technology” findings when we see how they fit in the broader picture.

Ed Tech from the Trenches is a new report of two annual surveys on shifting media and materials use: developed and written by EdTech Design Associates and published by Marketing Projects, Inc. Drawing from the readership of The Big Deal Book of Technology e-newsletter, 1600+ K-12 educators participated. Respondents represent a full range of K-12 positions, subject areas, and grade levels across the United States, and are assumed to be technology forward. Survey participants rated how frequently they would use different instructional resources, equipment and devices in the next two years. They also selected curriculum materials they believe are effective for learning 21st Century skills. Further, respondents gave personal as well as school-related use ratings for communications, computers and the Internet.

Two overall trends emerged:

1. an increasingly diversified mix of instructional resources
2. the growing centrality of online use

Following is a small sampling of findings from the two annual surveys.

Core curriculum

• High-use ratings for print textbooks range from 39 percent of the media specialists, 40 percent of the tech coordinators, and 49 percent of the buyers to 68 percent of the teacher group.
• Frequent use of print textbooks is growing, but frequent use of computer courseware and digital textbooks is growing faster. The one-year increase for digital textbooks is 2.75 times greater, and the one-year increase for courseware is 4.75 times greater than that for print textbooks.
• About the same number of tech coordinators and media specialists give high-use ratings to podcasts, wikis, and blogs as they do to print textbooks.

Supplementals and reference

• More teachers estimate frequent use of print. More tech coordinators estimate frequent use of digital. Still, both groups rank the same four digital resources in their top five: online curriculum activities, streaming video subscriptions, skills practice software, and online games/simulations. (Web resource subscription is 3rd for tech coordinators and 7th for teachers.)
• Online supplemental and reference materials have more high-use ratings than their print counterparts. For example: online curriculum activities (75 percent)–print worksheets (50 percent); Web resource subscriptions (55 percent)–trade books and leveled readers (46 percent); streaming video subscriptions (66 percent)–TV programs (24 percent).

21st Century skills

• Survey respondents give more effectiveness ratings to Website collections and computer courseware than to textbooks on seven out of nine 21st Century skills.
• Overall, neither traditional instructional materials with 25-43 percent effectiveness ratings nor newer and emerging resources with 34-84 percent ratings are adequate for 21st Century teaching and learning.
• The 21st Century skills that are least well addressed by instructional resources today are: leadership, health and wellness, economic and entrepreneurial literacy, and ethics and social responsibility.

In Ed Tech from the Trenches, the above facts are presented as part of comparisons, visually highlighted with multiple types of charts. (See the survey sampler; get the full report.) With many ways of contrasting the data, we can gain perspectives that fit with particular interests and business needs.

As we carry on the conversation in this “Publishing for the Digital Future” series, we can highlight market research questions and look for findings in context, continuing to shape the picture of shifting media and materials use.

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Sari, innovator in product and business development, is owner of EdTech Design Associates, working with those who want to use disruptive technologies to transform teaching and learning. She has held senior positions at AGS Publishing/Pearson, JASON Foundation, Family Education Network, and CAST where she was instrumental in unfolding UDL (Universal Design for Learning) and leading large-scale collaborations with Scholastic and Harcourt. Among her research projects are the landmark study for Scholastic Network and the Council of Greater City Schools showing efficacy of online use, SBIR-funded prototypes for WebCT/ULT, and K-12 Shifting Materials and Media Use surveys for Marketing Projects, Inc. Sari has taught elementary to graduate school and received her B.Ed. from University of Toronto and Ed.D. from Harvard.