Teachers’ use of textbooks in the digital age

Abstract

This paper explores teachers’ use of textbooks in the digital age. After discussing student expectancies and needs, textbook use and the affordances of modern technology, the paper reports the results of a small-scale pilot study involving eight higher education teachers in Australia who discuss the use of textbooks in higher education in the digital age. The results indicate that textbooks are generally viewed as reliable tools which provide creditable information that supports and enhances students’ understanding of critical concepts, and that they present bite-size chunks of information to cement student learning