Student Success Research Lab team earns Best Article of the Year honor
Researchers at The Ohio State University's Student Success Research Lab (SSRL) were recently awarded the 2022 Best Article of the Year from the academic library journal, portal: Libraries and the Academy, published by Johns Hopkins University Press. The authors, Shanna Smith Jaggars, Kaity Prieto, Marcos D. Rivera and Amanda L. Folk, were honored for their article, "Using affordable course materials: Instructors' motivations, approaches, and outcomes."
Shanna Smith Jaggars
Assistant vice provost and Student Success Research Lab director.
Kaity Prieto
Former Ohio State graduate research assistant; currently an assistant professor of higher education and student affairs at the University of Southern Mississippi.
Marcos D. Rivera
Affiliated researcher with the Student Success Research Lab.
Amanda L. Folk
Associate professor and head of teaching and learning at University Libraries.
Research focused on faculty adoption of affordable textbooks
Based on 30 interviews with instructors who implemented affordable materials in their courses at a large research university, the study explored their motivations for using such resources, their processes, and the extent to which the new course materials influenced teaching methods and perceived learning outcomes. Results suggest that most instructors were motivated by both student cost savings and hoped-for improvements in teaching and learning. Instructors' choices — such as adopting an existing textbook in full or curating a collection of disparate materials — were strongly influenced by their perception of how well available resources aligned with their own teaching and learning goals. In general, instructors felt student learning slightly improved after they put the materials into use, but the extent of improvement seemed to vary across the approaches to implementation. Librarians can leverage these results to help motivate and support the selection and implementation of affordable materials.
Jaggars noted that “Each year, the typical college student spends over a thousand dollars on textbooks and other course materials, and many colleges are trying to bring that cost down by using more affordable alternatives to traditional textbooks. But faculty need some motivation in order to invest their time and effort into adopting affordable materials. Colleges have traditionally tried to motivate instructors by focusing on the cost savings to students, but we may have reached the point of saturation in terms of instructors who are motivated by cost-savings alone. This article begins to shift the conversation about instructor motivation. It helps affordability advocates see ways to get more instructors excited about affordable materials, and it provides practical implications in terms of how to tailor outreach efforts, support instructors who are undertaking this work, and prioritize institutional resources.”
Access to the full article and a video of co-authors Jaggars and Prieto discussing their research is available at the portal website.
The SSRL research unit conducts scholarly Institutional Review Board-based research, connects Ohio State faculty researchers to the student success agenda, disseminates Ohio State student success work nationally, and serves on state and national advisory boards and committees focused on college student success.