In today's digital age, the use of e-textbooks has become prevalent in educational institutions. These digital resources offer numerous advantages such as portability, accessibility, and interactive features that enhance the learning experience. However, the successful implementation of e-textbooks requires more than just providing students with access to digital content. To truly engage students and promote active learning, innovative instructional strategies need to be employed. Active learning has been recommended in academic research literature (Freeman et al., 2014; Theobald et al., 2020) to engage learners. Separate studies have looked at the variety and potential uses of H5P in supporting active learning (Singleton & Charlton, 2020; Carr, 2021). H5P (HTML5 Package) is a free and open-source tool that allows educators to create interactive content and activities within e-textbooks.

The use of H5P within e-textbooks presents an opportunity to revolutionize the way students interact with course materials. By integrating interactive elements such as quizzes, interactive videos, presentations, and other stimulating content directly within the e-textbooks, educators can create a more engaging and immersive learning experience for students. Notably, H5P's versatility allows for the creation of tailored content that suits various learning styles, ultimately catering to a diverse student population. In another words, the interactive nature of H5P activities would foster active participation and provide immediate feedback, thereby promoting deeper retention of the subject matter.

Participants

Using the academic survey participants recruiting platform, Prolific, we invited participants from United States colleges that are between the ages of 18-65 to take our study. We recruited 292 participants to take the survey. 

Instrument

Two research instruments will use in the study. 

1. The Instructional Materials Motivation Survey (IMMS)

To measure motivation, we adapted a survey based upon Keller’s (2000) ARCS Model of motivation. We chose this scale, as it is based on four research-based, motivational concepts and characteristics: Attention (A), relevance (R), confidence (C), and satisfaction (S). Participants asked to rate and explain their levels of each after interacting with regular OER and H5P-rich OER learning objects. 

The ARCS model, developed by John Keller in 1987, serves as the foundational framework for addressing motivation in learning. This model places a spotlight on four key motivational elements: Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction, all of which are integral for effective instructional design (Keller, 2006). It provides strategies to bolster motivation in the learning process and offers guidance on how to seamlessly incorporate these strategies into formal curriculum and teaching design. The primary objective of the ARCS model is to make learning activities captivating and stimulating for learners, ultimately enhancing their cognitive abilities for meaningful learning. While other motivational models and theories tend to focus on the psychological aspects of learners, such as their attitudes, the ARCS model remains pertinent and valuable in this study by emphasizing motivation throughout the instructional materials' design and development (Refat, et. al., 2020). 

2. Five Question Knowledge Test

A short knowledge test will be developed to quickly measure participants’ level of knowledge before and after the instructional materials. To ensure the knowledge test’s validity, the questions are reviewed by the subject matter expert to ensure the questions are aligned with the learning outcomes of the instructional materials. 

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What did we learn?

The study showed that H5P can 

• increase learner's motivation

• increase learner's satisfaction level 

• increase the relevance of the content to the learner

 It may not have a significant effect on learner's attention or confidence levels. More study is needed to see if particular H5P affect learner's attention or confidence more than others.

It may not have a significant effect on the improving learning, but more study is needed to see if particular H5P types have a greater impact on learning than others.

Who does this impact?

For instructors and instructional designers there is added reason for implementing H5P in future digital textbooks:

While H5P can be used as a formative assessment tool, it has the additional benefit of making the interactivity relevant to the learning, motivating the learner to continue, and increasing their feelings of satisfaction after reading and interacting with the digital text.

What's next?

We plan to build upon this research by running a qualitative, phenomenological study using the same H5P-embeded digital text to survey the effect of H5P on learner's anxiety.