8 ms·

Publishers are merely exploiting the highly school-like nature of university education in the US. When I was in university, over in Europe, a long time ago, on

Publishers are merely exploiting the highly school-like nature of university education in the US. When I was in university, over in Europe, a long time ago, on the first day of lectures the professors would wheel in a cart of textbooks, saying these are suitable texts, go and pick the one that suits you best. But in the US, students demand that their education is like high school, with a set text and all, and if the exercises in "Physics for Biologists", 9th edition are on a different page from "Physics for Biologists", 8th edition they complain. This is the root cause of the continuous revisions to undergraduate texts.

tjr 14y ago
Taking university multi-variable calculus (in the US), I grew disappointed with the explanations in the prescribed textbook. They happened to be renovating the math department building that year, and some staff were dumping out old "evaluation copies" of various textbooks. I sorted through a pile of them until I found one that I liked better, and used it for the remainder of the class, doing similar problem sets to the ones assigned.
- NegativeK 14y ago
  Were the problem sets graded? I'm assuming that, if they were, you did both. If you didn't, what was the grader's response?
  - tjr 14y ago
    No, the problem sets weren't graded. I suppose had they been, I would have used one book to read from and the other to do problems out of!
thedufer 14y ago
> students demand What? I've never heard this particular demand (and I just graduated from a US college). Sure, students might complain about having the wrong edition - but only when lecturers assign work by page number, so that it becomes impossible to do it with the wrong edition. Do you have any evidence that this is the students' fault?
- PeterisP 14y ago
  Well, that's the whole point - you never, ever assign anything "by page number" since you don't rely on any specific textbook being used or available. You teach a specific topic; and supplementary reading and extra information on that topic will be available in any reasonable textbook of that subject. You might recommend a textbook that, in your opinion, explains it clearest; but in a few of my college years I managed without reading a single textbook as the lectures + prof's online notes + my work experience covered almost everything, and the rest could be looked up online or simply asked.
- saraid216 14y ago
  Effectively, it was an era before your generation. This is largely speculation, but it's the conclusion I've drawn from my experience in community college (my university experience was more specialized and used effectively no textbooks): Students very often saw themselves as customers to a university, and the consumerist mindset of always being right was unfortunately brought along with this. If they got something wrong, they didn't accept blame for that: they'd push it off onto the TA or onto the professor. One easy vector for that was to blame it on the particular variation of book they had used, so professors started moving towards simply mandating a single golden text and teaching directly out of it. I got the sense that a huge part of it was because the faculty had gotten together and agreed on this solution as the simplest one; it was particularly palpable in cases where the professor was dismissive of and disgusted by the mandated textbook.
saraid216 14y ago
> When I was in university, over in Europe, a long time ago, on the first day of lectures the professors would wheel in a cart of textbooks, saying these are suitable texts, go and pick the one that suits you best. o.O Seriously? How have I never heard that this happens? That's ridiculously sane.
- CamperBob2 14y ago
  I don't think I agree. If I'm a student paying $XX,XXX per term to attend university, I'm not going to be thrilled at having to beat everyone else in a foot race to pick the one book, out of a random assortment of old books in a pile, that sucks the least. Professional curation of educational resources is a big part of what I'm paying for.
- SEMW 14y ago
  As someone who goes to uni in Europe (the UK), I've never had anyone wheel in a an actual cart of textbooks, but nor have I ever had a lecturer proclaim only a single textbook is acceptable. Usually they give a list of 5-10, with a few of them being recommended. Even where they clearly prefer some particular textbook, they'll still name a few alternatives. If a lecturer ever did say only a single textbook was allowed, a lot of people would laugh and ignore them (especially those people who prefer using library books to buying their own, since libraries don't usually stock enough copies of a single textbook). It's not like translating 'read chapter X for the tutorial on Y' into your chosen textbook is hard, that's what tables of contents are for. I genuinely don't understand why all the US uni students in this thread talk about declarations by lecturers that some textbook is Required as if it was illegal to disobey. What am I missing here? It's not like the uni has any way of checking what you've bought, surely?
  - saraid216 14y ago
    As I've been able to tell, a lot of the fiat declarations by lecturers actually come from hard experience with students trying to rules lawyer their way to good marks. If they declare with absolute finality This Book at This Edition on This Page, then students don't have as much wiggle room for whining. They can't say the material wasn't covered because, "Yes, actually, it was on page 149 right here." Stuff like that. ETA: Also see sibling comment from CamperBob2 for a good example of how students see themselves as customers of teachers.

tjr 14y ago

Taking university multi-variable calculus (in the US), I grew disappointed with the explanations in the prescribed textbook. They happened to be renovating the math department building that year, and some staff were dumping out old "evaluation copies" of various textbooks. I sorted through a pile of them until I found one that I liked better, and used it for the remainder of the class, doing similar problem sets to the ones assigned.

NegativeK 14y ago
Were the problem sets graded? I'm assuming that, if they were, you did both. If you didn't, what was the grader's response?
- tjr 14y ago
  No, the problem sets weren't graded. I suppose had they been, I would have used one book to read from and the other to do problems out of!

thedufer 14y ago

> students demand What? I've never heard this particular demand (and I just graduated from a US college). Sure, students might complain about having the wrong edition - but only when lecturers assign work by page number, so that it becomes impossible to do it with the wrong edition. Do you have any evidence that this is the students' fault?

PeterisP 14y ago
Well, that's the whole point - you never, ever assign anything "by page number" since you don't rely on any specific textbook being used or available. You teach a specific topic; and supplementary reading and extra information on that topic will be available in any reasonable textbook of that subject. You might recommend a textbook that, in your opinion, explains it clearest; but in a few of my college years I managed without reading a single textbook as the lectures + prof's online notes + my work experience covered almost everything, and the rest could be looked up online or simply asked.
saraid216 14y ago
Effectively, it was an era before your generation. This is largely speculation, but it's the conclusion I've drawn from my experience in community college (my university experience was more specialized and used effectively no textbooks): Students very often saw themselves as customers to a university, and the consumerist mindset of always being right was unfortunately brought along with this. If they got something wrong, they didn't accept blame for that: they'd push it off onto the TA or onto the professor. One easy vector for that was to blame it on the particular variation of book they had used, so professors started moving towards simply mandating a single golden text and teaching directly out of it. I got the sense that a huge part of it was because the faculty had gotten together and agreed on this solution as the simplest one; it was particularly palpable in cases where the professor was dismissive of and disgusted by the mandated textbook.

saraid216 14y ago

> When I was in university, over in Europe, a long time ago, on the first day of lectures the professors would wheel in a cart of textbooks, saying these are suitable texts, go and pick the one that suits you best. o.O Seriously? How have I never heard that this happens? That's ridiculously sane.

CamperBob2 14y ago
I don't think I agree. If I'm a student paying $XX,XXX per term to attend university, I'm not going to be thrilled at having to beat everyone else in a foot race to pick the one book, out of a random assortment of old books in a pile, that sucks the least. Professional curation of educational resources is a big part of what I'm paying for.
SEMW 14y ago
As someone who goes to uni in Europe (the UK), I've never had anyone wheel in a an actual cart of textbooks, but nor have I ever had a lecturer proclaim only a single textbook is acceptable. Usually they give a list of 5-10, with a few of them being recommended. Even where they clearly prefer some particular textbook, they'll still name a few alternatives. If a lecturer ever did say only a single textbook was allowed, a lot of people would laugh and ignore them (especially those people who prefer using library books to buying their own, since libraries don't usually stock enough copies of a single textbook). It's not like translating 'read chapter X for the tutorial on Y' into your chosen textbook is hard, that's what tables of contents are for. I genuinely don't understand why all the US uni students in this thread talk about declarations by lecturers that some textbook is Required as if it was illegal to disobey. What am I missing here? It's not like the uni has any way of checking what you've bought, surely?
- saraid216 14y ago
  As I've been able to tell, a lot of the fiat declarations by lecturers actually come from hard experience with students trying to rules lawyer their way to good marks. If they declare with absolute finality This Book at This Edition on This Page, then students don't have as much wiggle room for whining. They can't say the material wasn't covered because, "Yes, actually, it was on page 149 right here." Stuff like that. ETA: Also see sibling comment from CamperBob2 for a good example of how students see themselves as customers of teachers.