A Pilot Study in the Use of E-Books for Learning

There are quite a number of educational electronic learning devices for children aged between 3 to 12 years old. These portable laptop look-alike devices are designed to make drill and practice exercises painless and more fun with elements of text, audio and animation. This paper describes a study on how children use and feel about learning with such a device. Preliminary findings suggest that the readability of the machine is poor and kids prefer a richer display of information, and for this reason producers of learning devices should look very carefully at representation issues.

1. Introduction

Paper books have been used as extremely useful aids for the support of many activities including teaching and learning for many years. However, another type of book, known as the electronic book, has emerged, with many companies engaging in manufacturing electronic reading devices used for displaying, reading and storing electronic information. Nuvomedia Inc.[14], SoftBook Press Inc. [16] and EveryBook Inc. [12] are examples of manufacturers of hand-held reading devices who are currently targeting only professionals that require access to lots of reference materials [6]. In contrast, Oregon Scientific [15], VTECH [17],and IQ Builders [13], are producing fun, friendly computer-based learning machines for children aged between 3 to 12 years old.

With these new and increasingly popular products it is important for educators and researchers to study and learn about the implications and appropriateness of the technologies on educational settings of their target customers. Before discussing a case study carried out on how children use and feel about the learning machine, this paper first describes the definition of an electronic book. It then introduces a specific learning machine to be the object of this study and the methodology followed in evaluating it. Finally, a number of observed qualitative findings are outlined.

1.1 Definition of an electronic book

An electronic book (e-book) is essentially a computer-based information storage/dissemination artefact that embeds a book metaphor [4]. More precisely, an electronic book is usually considered to be composed of a collection of reactive (screen based) pages of electronic information that are (usually) organised in a thematic way and that exhibit many of the characteristic features and properties of a conventional book [3].

There have been various attempts to categorise e-books according to their main features [2,3,7]. We thought that there was a need for a more flexible philosophy in order to accommodate the wide range of new objects produced nowadays, as they are all labelled e-books. We propose that e-books be classified according to what aspect of the book they emphasise (purpose, content, functionalities, appearance) and by taking into account the kind of audience they target. According to this bi-dimensional categorisation the pilot study described in this paper considers e-books whose purpose is mainly educational and whose audience is made up of children in primary school.

2. The Learning Machine

The machine considered in this pilot study is called 'Zip, the Robot Learning PC'. It is designed for 4-7 year olds and has 50 activities covering vocabulary, spelling, grammar, maths, music and games. It can be expanded with add-in smart cards. Like a real laptop, it has a QWERTY keyboard and a mouse to also introduce essential computer user skills. The machine is powered either by 4AA size batteries or a 9V AC adapter.

Game activities and questions come in groups of 10. Users are given 3 attempts to answer each question. Points are awarded according to the number of attempts taken to answer each question correctly. Each attempt to answer a question is timed 1 minute for levels 1-5 and 30 seconds for level 6. If users are unable to answer in time, it is counted as an incorrect attempt. The user is praised for each correct answer and prompted for action if the given time is exceeded.

The score is displayed at the end of each activity and users scoring 85 points or higher after a group of 10 questions can proceed to the next higher level of difficulty. Scores of 60 points or below go to the next lower level.

3. Observed qualitative study

Six 5-8 year old children were given the opportunity to play with the learning machine. All participants are considered as "moderate technology users" for their age as all have had many experiences playing with CD titles, video games and personal computers. Moderate technology experience is essential as this study assumed the children are used to computer interface metaphor and handling of input devices.

While using the machine, the kids were observed for reactions and at the end of the playing time, each kid was asked to answer some questions regarding selected parameters.

This initial study attempts to observe the children's preferences toward the learning device, thus, a study of display preferences by Wearden [11] is partially adopted. Navigability, physical format and overall preference were selected and used as observation parameters. However, instead of observing wait time, we measured the overall time each child takes to play with the machine. A major challenge for flat panel display technology is to reproduce the viewability or readability of ink on paper [5]. Realising the importance of the readability concept, this parameter is also observed in this study.

The observed parameters were further broken down into the following questions:

Navigability: (1) How easy is it to make game choices? (2) Are the input devices easy to use and handle?
Physical format: (1) How heavy is the machine? (2) Do you like the design of the casing, screen and keyboard?
Readability: (1) Are the texts clearly displayed? (2) Are the texts and graphics smoothly outlined or are they too jagged? (3) Do you like the black and grey display? (3) Is the audio clearly understandable?
Overall preference: (1) Do you prefer learning with CD-ROM, paper or the electronic learning machine?
4. Results and Conclusions
Although this study was done on a small controlled scale, the opinions of these young children should not entirely be ignored and there are still a few points to be taken into account when designing future products.

Some of this study's observed results are in agreement with other studies' findings. Take for example:

Doane stated that an important parameter of the e-book is its necessary weight limitation. It cannot be heavier than we normally expect a book to be [5]. When asked about the weight, the children agreed that the machine weight is ideal and they prefer collections of books in electronic form compared to paper books.
Jaggies' in LCD are found to be liked least [1] in a study by Gujar et al. The six kids in this observation study also complained about the too-jagged texts and graphics.
The readability of this machine is observed to be low in the eyes of the kids. Reasons are low resolution black and grey displays (Nielsen design guidelines state that low resolution monitors have poor readability [9] ), small display screens, dull grey display panels, and too many jagged texts and graphics.
These children prefer richer colourful multimedia displays, as opposed to the findings by Wearden who did a survey of 276 university students and found that the least important potential features of an e-book are animated graphics, audio and video [10]. It is possible to conclude that the age factor has some effects on this parameter, but further studies have to be performed to validate it.
One other issue that needs to be discussed is the average time each of the children took to play with the machine. Liu's study showed that multimedia technology with its use of video, audio and graphics could engage children for a longer period of time [8]. However, this is not the case in this case study. All of the six children seemed to manage to get excited and interested for not more than 20 minutes only - as opposed to an average time of about 50 minutes they spent on educational games or CD titles. This detected time suggests that there is not enough fun for the kids in the contents, displays and activities. Thus more attention has to be paid by the producers of such devices to the way they present information in order to make their overall appearance more appealing to the right audience.

References

1. Gujar, A. Harrison, B. and Fishkin, K. A. (1998). comparative evaluation of display technologies for reading, Proceedings of HFES' 1998, pp 527-531.
2. Barker, P.G (1999). An Object Oriented Approach to Hypermedia Authoring, Interactive Multimedia Learning Environments: Human Factors and Technical Considerations on Design Issues, NATO ASI Series, Springer-Verlag. pp.132-152.
3. Barker, P.G (1999). Electronic Libraries of the Future, Encyclopedia of Microcomputers, Volume 23, Supplement 2, Marcel Dekker, Inc. pp.121-152.
4. Barker, P.G (1998). The role of digital libraries in future educational systems, Online Information 98 Proceedings. pp.301-310.
5. Doane, J. W. (1998). A comparison of display technologies suitable for e-book. <http://www.jmc.kent.edu/futureprint/1998fall/christie.htm>
6. Judge, P.C. (1998). E-books : A library on your lap. BusinessWeek. Nov 5, 1998. <http://www.businessweek.com/1998/46/b3604010.html>
7. Landoni, M. (1997). The Visual Book System: A Study of the Use of Visual Rhetoric in the Design of Electronic Books. Department of Information Science of the University of Strathclyde (PhD Thesis), Glasgow.
8. Min Liu (1996). An Exploratory Study of How Pre-Kindergarten Children Use the Interactive Multimedia Technology: Applications for Multimedia Software Design, Journal of Computing in Childhood Education, Volume 7, Number 1/2,1996.
9. Nielsen, J. (1998). Electronic books - A bad idea., July, 26.<http:// www.useit.com/papers/webwriting>
10. Wearden, S. (1998) Electronic Books : A Study of Potential Features and Their Perceived Value. <http://www.jmc.kent.edu/futureprint/1998fall/Weadren.htm>
11. Wearden, S. (1998). Lanscape vs. Portrait Formats : Assessing Consumer Preferences.
<http://www.jmc.kent.edu/futureprint/1998summer/Wearden.htm>
12. <http:// www.iqbuilders.co.uk/> (Nov, 1999).
13. <http://www.everybook.net> (Oct, 1999).
14. <http://www.nuvomedia.com> (Oct, 1999).
15. <http://www.oregonscientific.co.uk> (Oct, 1999).
16. <http://www.softbook.com> (Oct, 1999).
17. <http://www.vtech.com/> (Nov, 1999).