View article

The increase in the cost of college textbooks together with the proliferation of digital content and devices has inspired the development of open textbooks, open educational resources that are free, openly licensed, and often peer-reviewed. Although several published studies have investigated the impact of open textbook adoption on educational outcomes, none have separated the effects of textbook openness and format and only two have taken place in Canada (Hendricks, Reinsberg, & Rieger, 2017; Jhangiani & Jhangiani, 2017). This study investigates the perceptions, use, and course performance of Canadian post-secondary students assigned a commercial or open textbook in either print or digital format. Results show that students using the print format of the open textbook perceive its quality to be superior to the commercial textbook. Moreover, students assigned an open textbook in either format perform either no differently from or better than those assigned a commercial