Students use tablets during class at an elementary school in Seoul. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Aug. 18 (Korea Bizwire) — A substantial portion of students who have the experience of downloading or using digital textbooks through smart devices have a positive attitude towards the idea of using them during class, a report showed Monday.
The Korea Education and Research Information Service (KERIS) conducted a survey of 8,916 elementary, middle and high school students and 540 teachers.
In addition, KERIS also carried out a national perception survey of 1,000 men and women over 19 years of age via a professional survey organization.
Among the students with experience using digital textbooks, 81.3 percent said they were in favor of the idea of using them during class.
The national perception survey showed that 51.9 percent of the respondents were in favor of using them during class, higher than the 40.8 percent who were against their use.
Among the functions of digital textbooks, ‘photo or image view’ was the most used function by teachers and students (62.1 percent), followed by ‘video or animation’ functions (54.5 percent).
Teachers and students turned out to have somewhat different views on the negative side of digital textbooks.
Among the students who opposed the idea of using digital textbooks during class, the biggest reason (21.9 percent) was the difficulty in using them.
In contrast, 87.3 percent of the teachers pointed out that the use of digital textbooks tended to distract students, making it difficult for them to concentrate.
In the national perception survey, the potential of encouraging Internet or gaming addiction was regarded as the biggest reason (37.3 percent) for opposing digital textbooks.
The results can be interpreted as indicating that students are feeling limited by digital textbooks because of their lack of convenience in use and the quality of content, while adults have a sense of the limit of digital texbooks when it comes to a student’s ability to remain focused on the task at hand.
Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)
