The effect of E-books on Preservice student teachers' achievement and perceptions in the United Arab Emirates

E-books are replacing textbooks at educational institutions worldwide. The effectiveness of e-books depends on factors such as design, interactivity, richness of content, and students' perceptions of the benefits they gain or think they gain. This study aimed to investigate the effect of e-books on learning technological course content and assess preservice student teachers' perceptions of the usefulness of e-books for their course learning. The study used a quasi-experimental, three-group pretest-posttest design with two experimental groups and one control group. The first experimental group used an interactive e-book (an iBook); the second, a non-interactive e-book (a PDF version of the iBook); and the control group, a hardcopy version of the same e-book. Participants were preservice student teachers studying a technology course at the United Arab Emirates University. A post-treatment questionnaire was also administered to all participants. The results did not show any significant difference in achievement of the course content related to the type of the book used. Preservice teachers had a significantly more positive attitude towards the usefulness of the interactive e-book version for content learning than towards other versions and reported more advantages and fewer disadvantages of the interactive version compared to the other versions.