The More they Tried it the Less they Liked it: Norwegian and Romanian Student’s Response to Electronic Course Material

Abstract

In this paper we will present and compare survey findings from Romania and Norway taken from the “Multinational study on students’ preferences regarding print versus electronic resources for course readings”. This study was conducted in April 2015 and surveyed undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate students of various subjects at different universities. The aim was to investigate students’ format preferences when engaging with academic readings and what factors impact their preferences and behaviors. The comparative study will show whether students’ reading format preferences vary or remain consistent across multi-national student populations. We also make comparisons with results from an earlier study of Romanian and Norwegian students’ attitudes towards using academic libraries. In particular, we look at the reasons given for preferring course readings in either electronic or print format, and we discuss what this could mean for collection development policies.