Effects of interactivity in E-textbooks on 7th graders science learning and cognitive load

This study investigated the effects of interactive e-textbooks on 7th grade students' learning and cognitive load. The specific objective was to investigate how multimedia interactivity of an e-textbook affects students' perceived learning, grades, and cognitive load compared to a static PDF e-textbook. The study involved two groups of students trialing an interactive e-textbook and a static PDF e-textbook within the environmental unit of science class. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches were employed to analyze the data. Data was collected from student surveys, unit final test and teacher interviews. Results indicated that students using the static PDF e-textbook performed better on the unit final test. Significant differences were obtained in perceived learning between the two groups with students using the interactive e-textbook having higher perceived cognitive and affective learning scores than those using the static PDF e-textbook. There were no significant differences between the groups regarding their cognitive load levels. We hope that the findings of this study would assist in future design and implementation of interactivity in classroom e-textbooks for K-12.