Will You Read It Now? The Intentional Instruction of E-textbook in Secondary Education

Abstract

E-textbooks have generated attention in education and the expectation to use the technology has become a requirement rather than an option. The purpose of this mixed method explanatory sequential study was to explain the impact that direct instruction on comprehension strategy and e-textbook feature connection had on secondary student comprehension. Twenty-four high school juniors in a physical science course participated in this study and were randomly selected within intact groups to be a part of either the experimental or comparison group. Results demonstrate that there was a significant difference between the experimental group who received direct instruction on strategy and feature connection and the comparison group who only received strategy instruction. To illuminate differences, follow up focus groups were conducted and results indicated that students preferred using the highlighting feature of an e-textbook.