Document Type
Article
Publication Date
4-3-2025
Publication Title
The Journal of Academic Librarianship
Volume
51
Issue
3
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2025.103025
Abstract
The rising costs of textbooks have prompted widespread textbook affordability initiatives in higher education. Programs that reduce student costs and offer increased access have become an integral part of campus strategic planning initiatives. In this case study, we discuss the design, implementation, and assessment of an Affordable Content grant program at a medium sized, R2, urban university. The grant was awarded with a stipulation that the system-wide program will also be assessed. The assessment of the impact and efficacy of affordable course content initiatives requires quantitative strategies often outside academic librarians' expertise. To this end, we partnered with campus stakeholders to leverage their data analysis expertise. Since randomized controlled trials are not always viable in educational research, we used the Propensity Score Matching method to ensure the groups of students were structurally similar. The results of our analysis showed a significant impact on measures of student retention. This study adds to the growing body of literature on measuring the impact of textbook affordability and offers an opportunity to further advocate campus-wide adoption of open pedagogy.
Recommended Citation
Bishop, K., Farooq, O., Swift, A., and Finley, C. (2025). Assessment of a textbook affordability initiative: A framework for measuring the impact on student enrollment and retention outcomes. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 51(3). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2025.103025
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Comments
This is the accepted manuscript of an article published in the Journal of Academic Librarianship.