Conventional wisdom says that loaning Apple’s bestselling iPad to college students would be a popular move. A seven-week-long study by the University of Notre Dame found that students did indeed like learning with the tablet computers, but that they used the devices differently than was expected. The students also identified some drawbacks of bringing iPads into the classroom, such as the difficulty of taking notes on the tablet.
The study kicked off in Aug. 2010 under Notre Dame management professor Corey Angst. Students in Angst’s fall semester undergraduate “Project Management” course were each given an iPad to do reading and other coursework.
The original idea was to use the iPads as e-readers, in place of traditional textbooks. But over the course of the semester, Angst found that the iPad was even more useful as an information aggregation tool. Groups working on projects could pull out their iPads to brainstorm and save their results on an online file storage site like Dropbox. The next time they met, group members could easily access the saved files without emailing revisions back and forth. Since everyone had the same device, groups didn’t need to worry about technical issues or compatibility problems.
The students, who were either juniors or seniors, found the iPads helpful in five ways. In a series of surveys conducted throughout the semester, most students said the iPads encouraged exploration of additional course topics, helped them manage their time, provided new functions/tools for learning, increased their learning and made their courses more interesting. Though they were not instructed to do so, most students also said they used the iPads to do reading for other courses and leisure reading.
Not everyone was a fan, however. Some students cited what Angst characterizes as “technical and behavioral challenges”. In the study, more than half the students reported feeling frustrated when highlighting text and taking notes within e-books on the iPad. Another drawback was the fact that multiple “windows” or files couldn’t be kept open, side-by-side, on the iPad, unlike a full-fledged computer.
Students also indicated that they considered the device, which starts at $499, expensive. More students preferred to be loaned an iPad and purchase the corresponding e-books (and eventually return the iPad) than buy the iPad outright (and own it).
At the same time, the students said they were “willing to wait for improvements” to the device, leading Angst to conclude that overall impressions of the iPad were “very favorable”. When asked how they felt about giving up their iPads at the end of the course, about 65% of the students said it would be difficult to relinquish the device.
Notre Dame plans to keep studying iPad usage through the fall. (Acknowledging the small size of his study sample – approximately 40 students – Angst notes that further research is needed to better understand how iPads affect learning.) Graduate students are also part of the test group. This semester, students in the university’s law school are using the iPads.
Are iPads or other tablets useful additions to classrooms or is it still too early to incorporate them? Let me know in the comments below. The full study can be read here.