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Research 2021-06-03T04:45:22+00:00

Research

Research on the impact of OER on student success is still emerging, but initial studies and review have found that OER makes a difference!  Day one access to class resources decreased textbook cost, and teaching innovation that improves student engagement are all assets the use of OER can contribute to student success. Read these articles for more insight.

General

Beyond Textbooks: Reduce Equity Gaps with Open Educational Resources (OER) – in the black box with the videos, click OER OER Why, What, How for Monterey Peninsula College 

Largest-ever study of impact of Open Educational Resources in college reveals benefits of introducing OER courses on a broad scale – Achieving the Dream

The Impact of Open Textbooks on Secondary Science Learning OutcomesEducational Researcher

A multi-institutional study of the impact of open textbook adoption on the learning outcomes of post-secondary students Journal of Computing in Higher Education

The Impact of Open Educational Resources on Various Student Success Metrics International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education

Gap Analysis and Environmental ScanSharing Observations, Priorities, Opportunities in theNational OER Landscape – specifically, see Part II

Open Education Group

The Intersection of Accessibility and Open Educational Resources

Accessibility within open educational resources and practices for disabled learners: a systematic literature review

Bridging the accessibility gap in Open Educational Resources

Inclusive Open Education Practices: How the Use and Reuse of OER can Support Virtual Higher Education for All

Inclusive Access and Open Educational Resources E-text Programs in Higher Education (book–unable to access because $)

Going All in on OER – “In this article, I present persuasive research on OER’s effectiveness in terms of student performance before making recommendations to support faculty interested in partially or fully adopting OER.”  Jackie Hoermann-Elliott, PhD, is an assistant professor of English and the director of first-year composition at Texas Woman’s University, where she regularly teaches courses for her program as well as graduate courses in writing pedagogy and theory.

References:

Bart, Mary. “Survey highlights growth of video in higher ed, optimism over OER.” Faculty Focus, (2016): https://www.facultyfocus.com/uncategorized/annual-survey-highlights-growing-use-video-higher-education-optimism-oer/

Colvard, Nicholas B., Watson, C. Edward, & Park, Hyojin. “The impact of open educational resources on various student success metrics.” International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 30, no. 2 (2018): 262-276. doi: https://www.isetl.org/ijtlhe/

Farrow, Robert, Pitt, Rebecca, de los Arcos, Beatriz, Perryman, Leigh-Anne, Weller, Martin, & McAndrew, Patrick. “Impact of OER use on teaching and learning: Data from OER Research Hub (2013-2014).” British Journal of Educational Technology 46, no. 5 (2015): 972-976. doi: 10.1111/bjet.12310

Hilton, J. “Open educational resources and college textbook choices: A review of research on efficacy and perceptions.” Education Technology Research and Development 64 (2016): 573–590. doi:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-016-9434-9

Stachowiak, Bonnie. “186: Assessing the impact of open educational resources with C. Edward Watson.” Teaching in HigherEd. January 4, 2018. Podcast. MP3 audio, 35:59. https://teachinginhighered.com/podcast/assessing-impact-open-educational-resources/#transcriptcontainer.

 

Equity

Baker, E. W., & Sibona, C. J. (2020). Digital OER Impact on Learning Outcomes for Social Inclusion. Journal of Computer Information Systems, 1. https://doi.org/10.1080/08874417.2020.1802789

The Information Systems field has long been positioned globally as a particularly powerful instru-ment to promote social inclusion. While individual identity characteristics have been the primary research focus on social inclusion, our research study directly investigates an external environmental influence in social inclusion, course materials cost, and its impact on learning outcomes. General theories of student motivation and cognition in educational outcomes and social inclusion theory were used as a starting point to identify a significant positive difference in the learning outcomes of students who used open text materials contrasted with those who used proprietary text materials. Our research with 198 participants found support for student motivation and open instructional materials as positive influences on student learning outcomes. Implications for theory and future research on social inclusion in education at the environmental level are recommended based on the results. 

Ceciliano, Jenny; Notman, Lisa; Bjork, Karen; Wood, Jaime R.; and Robison, Scott, “How Does OER Meet Our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Goals?” (2021). Open Education Week 2021. 2. https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/35085 

“Eliminating textbook costs through the use of Open Educational Resources may seem like a simple change, but it’s one that can have a big impact. Research has shown that using OER in place of traditional textbooks helps to create more equitable and inclusive learning experiences for marginalized students. In this workshop, learn more about how OER is a DEI tool and how PSU faculty are using OER in their courses.”

Nusbaum, A. T. (2020). Who Gets to Wield Academic Mjolnir?: On Worthiness, Knowledge Curation, and Using the Power of the People to Diversify OER. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2020(1), NA. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A623767460/AONE?u=highlinecc&sid=AONE&xid=b058ea1b 

Abstract: 

[1]In many academic fields Western/white/male/cishetero[2]/abled perspectives are often centered, while other perspectives are presented as “other.” Implicitly, this sends messages to students that success looks like one type of person, knowledge is generated in one kind of way, and their background is not worth being centered. While open educational resources (OER) are often marketed as a tool for social justice, due to their ability to neutralize class-based differences (e.g., Okamoto 2013), there is no evidence that OER are any better than commercial texts at addressing issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion (see Mishra 2017 for a discussion of context). However, OER do present a good opportunity for diversification, due to the relatively simple nature of updating the content. This project takes a crowdsourcing approach to diversify OpenStax Psychology (OpenStax College 2014), an OER for Introductory Psychology courses. Contributors were asked to read areas of the textbook they were comfortable with and make suggestions to diversify the content. The author then used some of the suggestions to create modified chapters and conducted a study investigating the impact of the revisions. Participants read either the original chapter or the diversified chapter and completed a questionnaire assessing their sense of belongingness in the classroom/on campus. Overall, first-generation students had a reduced sense of belonging related to their financial circumstances. However, this effect was ameliorated for first-generation students who read the diversified chapter, compared to those who read the original chapter.

Nusbaum AT, Cuttler C and Swindell S (2020) Open Educational Resources as a Tool for Educational Equity: Evidence From an Introductory Psychology Class. Front. Educ. 4:152. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2019.00152

“Overall, we found that students in Introductory Psychology performed equally-well when using OER compared to a traditional commercial textbook. Those using OER also rated the quality of the two textbooks similarly and accessed them at similar rates. Further, we found that students who were first-generation or both first-generation and an ethnic minority reported engaging in more behaviors and suffering more negative outcomes, such as dropping classes or receiving poor grades, because they could not afford the book. Despite the noted limitations, this study supports the conclusion that OER can addresses issues of educational equity while simultaneously maintaining the quality of students’ education.”

Veletsianos, G. Open educational resources: expanding equity or reflecting and furthering inequities?. Education Tech Research Dev 69, 407–410 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-020-09840-y

“Hilton’s (2016) research supports the widespread use of OER in higher education. In the immediate and post-pandemic era higher education, individual faculty members should consider transitioning from commercial to open textbooks. Instructional designers could support faculty in implementing OER and open practices (c.f. Morgan 2019). Libraries and Centers of Teaching and Learning could offer professional development in this area and advocate for such practices as the adoption of open textbooks and open homework systems (c.f. Okamoto 2013). Such efforts should go beyond individual action: Departments, colleges, and institutions, could devise policies to support, incentivise, and reward adoption of OER and open practices (e.g., Mays 2017).”

 

Student Success

Hilbert, Diane M., “Online Textbook Use and Online Student Success Rates in Community College” (2020). Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies. 9148.

https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/9148

“My study was designed to determine the effect of providing OER in the form of an online textbook for an online history community college course on student success rates, determined by final grade,as compared to student success rates for those who previously used hard copy textbooks in the same course. Archival data was disaggregated separately by gender and ethnicity to determine if those variables influenced the effects on student success in either the hardcopy or online textbook group. With addition of online courses in community college curricula, this research was needed to add to the understanding of student success rates in online courses.

These results indicate that providing the online textbook as compared to the traditional hardcopy textbook increased student success rates for online learners,as well as increasing student success rates by ethnicity.”

Collins, Megan, Nathan Mitchell, and Michael Nojeim. 2020. “Free Is My Favorite Flavor! Using OER Course Materials in GenEd Courses.” APSA Preprints. doi: 10.33774/apsa-2020-7jz1x. This content is a preprint and has not been peer-reviewed.

“Our research design evaluated whether or not the inclusion of an OER text improved student success and found that it did. Data suggest that having access to the free text earlier, helped students to perform better on earlier exams, therefore improving overall success in the class. The percentages of students achieving an A or Balso increased in sections of the courses that used the OER resource.

A second issue was whether or not student’s attitudes about their course would be impacted by the inclusion of an OER resource. We found that students were highly satisfied with the cost and the resource’s usefulness. Survey frequencies suggest that students felt more confident to participate in the class, by asking questions and engaging with the material. Anecdotal data from the open-ended questions, suggest that students appreciated that the professor tried to find something that was free for them to use. They also appreciated a portable resource that they could use across multiple devices.” *This paper is a rough draft and may not be used for attribution without the express written permission from all of its authors. 

Davis, J. D., & Cartwright, S. B. (2020). The Effects of Using Open Educational Resources on Minority Achievement in Undergraduate Mathematics. In M. Zhou (Ed.), Open Educational Resources (OER) Pedagogy and Practices (pp. 20-41). IGI Global. http://doi:10.4018/978-1-7998-1200-5.ch002

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1119064003  (for ILL, if anyone wants to borrow the book and read the relevant chapter.)

Abstract: “Prominent in the public debate on college affordability is the rising cost of textbooks. Owing to limited finances or mounting college debt, many students fail to purchase required course textbooks. Among the perils students without textbooks face are delayed course enrollment, high failure or dropout rates, and extended time to graduation. At Fort Valley State University, an Historically Black University within the University System of Georgia, the mathematics faculty first observed increasing numbers of college algebra students without textbooks, then, similarly, with upper division students. As a cost-savings measure, the faculty redesigned eight courses using open educational resources (OER). This chapter highlights the four-year results of faculty and students’ OER course experiences. OER students have better grades, lower failure rates, and better attendance records than those using traditional textbooks. The attitude of OER students towards mathematics also improved. A total cost savings of $197,780 was realized with an average, per student savings of $198.”

Read, Kim & Tang, Hengtao & Dhamija, Amber & Bodily, Robert. (2020). Understanding the Impact of OER Courses in Relation to Student Socioeconomic Status and Employment. 3. 10.18278/ijoer.3.1.5. Direct Link.

“The purpose of this study was to measure efficacy of Open Educational Resources (OER) on student academic achievement as well as student perceptions and use of OER, specifically among students of low socioeconomic status (SES). 

In addition, the authors of this study found students with low SES in-dicators (loans, Pell grants, and/or employment) preferred OER compared to commercial textbooks. Though no significant difference was reported in learner achievement between students with low and high SES indicators, this subgroup difference still merits attention when evaluating the overall effectiveness of OER initiatives in the future implementation.”

 

Retention Research

Colvard, N., Watson, C., Park, H. (2018). The Impact of Open Educational Resources on Various Student Success Metrics. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, v30 n2 p. 262-276.

https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1184998

There are multiple indicators which suggest that completion, quality, and affordability are the three greatest challenges for higher education today in terms of students, student learning, and student success. Many colleges, universities, and state systems are seeking to adopt a portfolio of solutions that address these challenges. This article reports the results of a large-scale study (21,822 students) regarding the impact of course-level faculty adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER). Results indicate that OER adoption does much more than simply save students money and address student debt concerns. OER improve end-of-course grades and decrease DFW (D, F, and Withdrawal letter grades) rates for all students. They also improve course grades at greater rates and decrease DFW rates at greater rates for Pell recipient students, part-time students, and populations historically underserved by higher education. OER address affordability, completion, attainment gap concerns, and learning. These findings contribute to a broadening perception of the value of OERs and their relevance to the great challenges facing higher education today.

Fischer, L., Hilton, J., Robinson, T.J. et al. (2015). A multi-institutional study of the impact of open textbook adoption on the learning outcomes of post-secondary students. J Comput High Educ 27, 159–172.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12528-015-9101-x

In some educational settings, the cost of textbooks approaches or even exceeds the cost of tuition. Given limited resources, it is important to better understand the impacts of free open educational resources (OER) on student outcomes. Utilizing digital resources such as OER can substantially reduce costs for students. The purpose of this study was to analyze whether the adoption of no-cost open digital textbooks significantly predicted students’ completion of courses, class achievement, and enrollment intensity during and after semesters in which OER were used. This study utilized a quantitative quasi-experimental design with propensity-score matched groups to examine differences in outcomes between students that used OER and those who did not. The demographics of the initial sample of 16,727 included 4909 students in the treatment condition with a pool of 11,818 in the control condition. There were statistically significant differences between groups, with most favoring students utilizing OER.

Hilton III, J., Fischer, L, Wiley, D., and Williams, L. (2016). Maintaining Momentum Toward Graduation: OER and the Course Throughput Rate. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, v17 n6.

http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/2686/3967

Open Educational Resources (OER) have the potential to replace traditional textbooks in higher education. Previous studies indicate that use of OER results in high student and faculty satisfaction, lower costs, and similar or better educational outcomes. In this case study, we compared students using traditional textbooks with those using OER at Tidewater Community College to compare their performance on what we call course throughput rates, which is an aggregate of three variables – drop rates, withdrawal rates, and C or better rates. Two self-selecting cohorts were compared over four semesters, with statistically significant results. The study found that, subject to the limitations discussed, students who use OER perform significantly better on the course throughput rate than their peers who use traditional textbooks, in both face-to-face and online courses that use OER. This suggests that OER are a promising avenue for reducing the costs of higher education while increasing academic success.

 

Stephanie Ojeda Ponce’s Annotated Research:

Research Notes

“APA’s Apology to Black, Indigenous and People of Color for Its Support of Structural Racism in Psychiatry.” January 2021.

  • “Events in 2020 have clearly highlighted the need for action by the APA to reverse the persistent tone of privilege built upon the inhumanity of past events. Inequities in access to quality psychiatric care, research opportunities, education/training, and representation in leadership can no longer be tolerated. The APA apologizes for our contributions to the structural racism in our nation and pledges to enact corresponding anti-racist practices. We commit to working together with members and patients in order to achieve the social equality, health equity, and fairness that all human beings deserve. We hope this apology will be a turning point as we strive to make the future of psychiatry more equitable for all.”

Brandle, Shawna, et al. “But What Do the Students Think: Results of the CUNY Cross-Campus Zero-Textbook Cost Student Survey.” Open Praxis, vol. 11, no. 1, International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE), 2019, pp. 85–101, doi:10.5944/openpraxis.11.1.932. Direct Link

  • Concerns re: approval and usage. By whom? Agree that ease of use and quality is essential. Note that reputable institutions often historically present barriers to non-white and other populations systematically excluded from institutional success.
  • “When an OER is perceived as having poor quality in its elaboration or content, it may result in a barrier for its approval and usage [4], so it is recommended for the OER to be performed by a reputable institution with access to updated information, as well as to take care of technical aspects, such as ease of access or download, freedom to adapt and use, in addition to indicating the type of licensing (Brandle et al. 1).”
  • Rubric evaluates “language grammar” focusing on passive v. active voice. WTF. This evaluative approach seems consistent with acculturation and norming strategies.

Calavitta Dos Santos, John. “Opening the Curriculum: Open Educational Practices through a Social Justice Lens.”  Cascadia OER Summit. 29 April 2021. Virtual Lecture.

  • Using student power sharing and anti-racist curriculum and assessment practices in conjunction with OER. Surveys students before the quarter and asks them to select from a database’s subject list.
  • JDSV primarily uses institutional library information.
  • Some participants argued that institutional library access materials are not OER.

Clarke Gray, Brenna. “Manifesto for the Future.” Cascadia OER Summit. 27 April 2021. Keynote.

  • “I have come to see these wellness webinars as positioning my exhaustion, my stress, my overwork as something I can solve on my own, with deep breathing lunchtime yoga; they invite me to see my struggle as a personal failing. I am not failing. I am being failed” (Clarke Gray).

de la Rosa Gómez, Anabel, et al. “Validation of a Rubric to Evaluate Open Educational Resources for Learning.” Behavioral Sciences (2076-328X), vol. 9, no. 12, Dec. 2019, p. 126. EBSCOhost, doi:10.3390/bs9120126.

  • Definition of OER: “The Open Educational Resources (OERs) are digital materials with the characteristic of being accessible for educators and users who wish to use or reuse them to learn about a specific topic, for research or teaching. The characteristic of being open allows the freedom to use them, study the content and apply the knowledge acquired through them, in addition to redistributing them and making changes or improvements” (qtd in de la Rosa Gomez).
  • OER Validation Rubric

Inoue, Asao B. Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies: Teaching and Assessing Writing for a Socially Just Future. The WAC Clearinghouse, 2015. https://wac.colostate.edu/docs/books/inoue/ecologies.pdf

  • “Thus so-called proper English or dominant discourses are historically connected to the white body. This makes sense intuitively. We speak with and through our bodies. We write with and through our bodies. As teachers when we read and evaluate our students’ writing, we do so through and with our bodies, and we have in our minds a vision of our students as bodies, as much as we have their language in front of us. Who historically has had the privilege to speak and write the most in civic life and in the academy? Whose words have been validated as history, truth, knowledge, story, the most throughout history? White people. Additionally, the material conditions that our students come from and live in affect and shape their bodies, making them who they are, making us who we are as teachers. The material conditions of the classroom, of our students’ lives, as we’ll see in later chapters, greatly determine their languaging and the writing assessment ecology of the classroom. I argue that in most cases writing teachers tend to have very different local histories and material conditions than their students of color and multilingual students, often the common thread is race.”

Reilly, Janet E. “Reporting Without Knowledge: The Absence of Human Rights in US Journalism Education.” Human Rights Review (Piscataway, N.J.), vol. 19, no. 2, Springer Netherlands, 2018, pp. 249–71, doi:10.1007/s12142-018-0493-7.

    • Reilly reviews journalism programs for representation of human rights in curriculu. I think this is an example of a field in which a diversity of languages and identities is crucial, yet that education is largely absent in a field where digital content is easily accessible and a common form of viewing and producing media.
  • Human rights are, of course, not the only important topic absent in US Journalism degree programs, and as schools and students strive to keep apace with technological advances in news production and distribution, they face difficult decisions about the amount of time and resources to invest in subject matter, including human rights, education.26 [ 26] In 2013, the former deans of three prominent journalism schools issued a “plea” for journalism graduate schools to situate journalism education more clearly within academia (Folkerts et al. [ 23] ). Arguing that journalism education had become too focused on technical skills training, they echoed the words of Carnegie Corporation President Vartan Gregorian in 1997, when he criticized journalism schools for “teaching journalistic techniques rather than subject matter,” and argued that “Journalists should be cultured people who know about history, economics, science. Instead they are learning what is called nuts and bolts. Like schools of education, journalism schools should either be reintegrated intellectually into the university or they should be abolished” (Gregorian in Dreifus [ 19]).

Resolution on the Students’ Right to Their Own Language. National Council of Teachers of English. November 1974. ncte.org/statement/righttoownlanguage/

  • Even this 1974 NCTE statement, which has been affirmed and updated, promotes linguistic acculturation: “That NCTE affirm the responsibility of all teachers to provide opportunities for clear and cogent expression of ideas in writing, and to provide the opportunity for students to learn the conventions of what has been called written edited American English…”

“This Ain’t Another Statement! This is a DEMAND for Black Linguistic Justice.” Special Committee on Composing a CCCC Statement on Anti-Black Racism and Black Linguistic Justice, Or, Why We Cain’t Breathe! Conference on College Composition and Communication. July 2020. cccc.ncte.org/cccc/demand-for-black-linguistic-justice

  • Teachers stop using academic language and standard English as the accepted communicative norm, which reflects White Mainstream English!
  • teachers stop teaching Black students to code-switch! Instead, we must teach Black students about anti-Black linguistic racism and white linguistic supremacy!
  • political discussions and praxis center Black Language as teacher-researcher activism for classrooms and communities!
  •  teachers develop and teach Black Linguistic Consciousness that works to decolonize the mind (and/or) language, unlearn white supremacy, and unravel anti-Black linguistic racism!
  • Black dispositions are centered in the research and teaching of Black Language!