that adopted OER and seven that examined student and / or faculty perceptions of OER . In general , and as described above in specific studies , Hilton found that students and faculty members find OER comparable to their traditional , commercial textbooks and the use of OER does not appear to negatively affect student performance .
Clinton ( 2018 ) synthesized the results of multiple studies of OER use in psychology and came to similar conclusions . Those studies also show a decrease in withdrawals from psychology courses , but it is unclear whether OER play a role in that decrease .
Clinton and Khan ( 2019 ) performed a meta-analysis of the results of several studies comparing academic performance and withdrawal rates in courses using OER and traditional textbooks . Based on the findings of 22 independent studies , they likewise conclude that “ there were no meaningful differences in learning efficacy between students using open textbooks and students using commercial textbooks ” (
p . 13 ) and students in OER courses appear to withdraw less frequently .
It should be noted that
Grimaldi , Mallick , Waters and Baraniuk ( 2019 ) have published a strong criticism of the methodology and assumptions of OER efficacy research . By conducting a simulation analysis to test the “ access hypothesis ” - the assumption that because OER increase students ’ access to textbooks , students may potentially perform better - they determined that “[ e ] ven under ideal conditions , detecting positive effects of OER should be extremely difficult ” (
p . 9 / 14 Colvard , Watson and Park ( 2018 ),
Fischer , Hilton , Robinson and Wiley ( 2015 ),
Clinton and Khan ( 2019 ), and the current study do not provide insight on if and how OER affect student learning . Still , the author of this paper believes that the current research and findings , including a contradictory finding on withdrawal rates that leads to more questions than answers , are a valuable contribution to the continually growing body of research on adopting free and open educational resources , especially at the community college level , for which , as previously described , the research has focused extensively on perceptions of cost and quality .
The number of sections in each course used in the study varies for several reasons : some faculty members