Following the success of last year\u2019s focus group, we decided to hold another one to see how behaviour has changed within students. Enticed by free cake and sandwiches, we held informal discussions with one large group of 13 students and one small group of 4, both lasted about 45 minutes. The group conversation format stimulated conversation and students almost had too much to say. The purpose was to see where they go to buy resources and what they expect from them.<\/p>\n
We started by asking them to write down all the websites they use frequently on a piece of paper. Answers did not differ much from last year, sites used by students being Google, Amazon\/Ebay, Study Direct\/Sussex Direct (VLE), e-mails and other popular academic and non-academic websites.<\/p>\n
We continued with a discussion about\u00a0academic resources. The main determinant of the students\u2019 choice of resources was how little money they had to part with in order to access them. Some students swear by the website \u2018Abe books\u2019 where books identical to those necessary for their studies are offered for a reduced price –\u00a0according to a student “they’re\u00a0<\/i>s<\/i>hipped from India<\/i> and<\/i> printed on a cheaper paper<\/i>“<\/i>. A comparison given was \u00a350 for a UK edition compared to \u00a37 from Abe books.<\/p>\n
It was pointed out that students find the layout of books extremely important. If they’re laid out clearly (and not just a dense pack of text) then there is a higher\u00a0possibility that\u00a0a student will\u00a0buy them. This is based on a fact that students\u00a0are given reading lists\u00a0which sometimes include \u201ctextbooks from the 60s, that are really indigestible\u201d<\/i>. An important part of textbooks are the quizzes or other types of self-assessment at the end of each chapter (\u201cI wouldn\u2019t buy them if they didn\u2019t include that\u201d<\/i>).<\/p>\n
When it comes to coursework, students tend to\u00a0use textbooks for basic understanding and online articles for more specific information. They don\u2019t find textbooks good enough for the whole course, as they require both facts and opinions. Some students said that they prefer to use resources they think their lecturer\u00a0will agree with because\u00a0they don’t want to risk getting a bad grade for presenting different opinions and submitting a conflicting essay.<\/p>\n
The focus group participants also said that they\u00a0loved video teaching and video lectures. They praised lecture recordings\u00a0and short YouTube explanations, stating that\u00a0they absorb a lot from them.<\/p>\n
We were interested in hearing if\u00a0students\u00a0would buy a new edition of a text book, since that question arose at the conference in St. Alban\u2019s. As expected, price differences played an important role when deciding whether to buy the new edition or the old one. If the new edition had more self-assessment tests and had a better layout, they would be prepared to buy a new edition and even pay more. However they\u00a0also highlighted that sometimes it is\u00a0more useful to buy an older edition if the course is based on that edition.<\/p>\n
Finally, and\u00a0we weren\u2019t supposed to ask this (we did anyway), students who do spend money on books\u00a0said that the maximum\u00a0price they would pay for\u00a0a\u00a0textbook would be \u00a330 per module.<\/p>\n