Why Use Textbooks?

I love to read. I dread reading textbooks. I find them informative but boring. I can read only a few pages at a time before I must go do something else to relieve my boredom. Like now. I am reading a textbook as I prepare to teach a course. Fifteen minutes after I sat down to read I am at my computer writing this blog entry.

At the end of last semester I had the students in the three sections of the introductory management course I was teaching do a self-assessment. One of the questions I asked was how thoroughly they read the textbook. Keep in mind that I started each class with a quiz on the assigned textbook chapter for that day. I was surprised by the students’ honesty. I was not surprised by the answers I received. Even my best students admitted that by mid-term they did nothing more than skim the chapters. That was doing well. Most students gave up on the text. They might turn to it to cram before an exam. Some students didn’t even own the textbook. Two or more students might share a copy. Those who did buy the textbook were likely to try and keep it in pristine condition so they could get more money when they resold it at the end of the semester. No one mentioned that they planned to keep the text as a reference after the course.

So why use textbooks if students don’t read them? My experience is that textbook use is more for the convenience of the teacher than for the benefit of the students. First, the textbook chapters provide the outline of the course. As the teacher, I don’t have to develop a course outline from scratch. All I need do is open to the text’s table of contents. The chapter titles give me the topics to be covered in the course. Then textbook publishers provide me with lecture notes, discussion questions, case studies, homework assignments, exam questions, PowerPoint slides. They may even have video segments I can show in class. Additional web resources are provided. Professionally prepared resources can save me an enormous amount of preparation time and effort. All of this I get for free! The students, by purchasing the assigned textbook, are paying to ease my workload.

As I said at the start of this piece, I find textbooks informative. I learn something from every textbook I read. And I keep my copies for future reference. But students are not going to receive value from the exorbitant expenditures they make for textbook purchases if they don’t read the books. We complain that students don’t read. We develop all kinds of strategies to force or entice them to read. How about we give them something interesting to read? I find students read when the book is relevant and engaging. Students will even recommend or pass on a copy of such books to their friends and even their parents. I suspect that textbooks are the primary culprit in killing students’ love for reading.

So what to do? I long ago eliminated the use of textbooks in my advanced courses. I provide handouts, internet resources, learning instruments, PowerPoint slides, and other materials. I have continued to use textbooks in my introductory courses. I am now questioning that decision after reviewing last semester’s student self-assessments. Developing alternatives will require more effort on my part. I will need to develop or identify alternative resources. I will need to search for more engaging books. I might make more use of periodicals. This will require some redesign of my curriculum. The extra work is worth it if it will result in more learning for the students. Why torture myself and my students with boring textbooks when there are so many engaging resources available? Today we can easily access exciting materials in text, audio, and video formats. Why use textbooks? It is becoming increasingly difficult for me to come up with a good reason. I am sure my students would agree.