International Journal of Open Educational Resources
enrollment in OER courses , impacted student performance . With grade as the dependent variable , ANOVAs were performed with the following groups of fixed factors :
• OER status and first-time student status
• OER status and full-time / part-time status
• OER status and ethnicity
• OER status and gender
• OER status and Pell eligibility
• OER status , Pell eligibility and ethnicity
Finally , a z-test of proportions was used to determine if there was a statistically significant difference in the percentage of W grades between OER courses and non-OER courses .
Table 2 . Course and number of students in both OER and non-OER sections
Course
Students in non- OER Sections
Students in OER Sections
BUSI-111 Introduction to Business 291 326 BIOL-124 Anatomy & Physiology I 95 71 COMM-101 Speech 75 47 ENGL-112 English Composition II 41 105 FITN-132 Cardiovascular Conditioning 10 8 HLTH-109 Pharmacology 30 21 PHYS-130 Astronomy 43 46 TOTAL 585 624
Results Final grades across courses
There was no statistically significant difference in final grades between students in OER courses ( M = 2.756 ) and non- OER courses ( M = 2.821 ) ( t = -0.818 , p < . 05 ). The finding of no difference in final course grades suggests that students perform as well in OER courses as they do in courses using a traditional , commercial textbook . While there is no significant improvement ( or decline ) in student achievement , there is the likely benefit that students have saved money by not having to purchase or rent a commercial textbook for the class .
Demographic factors
No significant difference in student performance between OER and non-OER courses was found based on a student ’ s first-time , full-time , or part-time status , gender , or Pell eligibility . Although
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