Will Tablets Replace Textbooks? Findings from our Second Annual Survey on Students and Tablets

Last week's launch of the new Apple iPad engendered more buzz around tablets and their roles for both personal and educational use. Since our first survey on this topic last year, we've been following closely as it seems there are more and more reasons to believe tablets are making their way into college classrooms—and more and more reasons to believe that tablets themselves are changing the way young people think about learning and formal education.

Today, we’re releasing the Second Annual Pearson Foundation Survey on Students and Tablets. Conducted by Harris Interactive, the survey helps frame the ways that college students and college-bound high school seniors currently use and would like to use the latest digital technologies.
Perhaps most impressive is this finding: Tablet ownership among college students and college-bound high school students has more than tripled from a year ago. The survey also reveals that more students are reading digital books than were last year, and a majority of college students and high school seniors believe that tablets will replace textbooks in the next five years. (This survey was conducted in January, 2012 and consisted of a nationally representative online poll of more than one thousand college students and more than two hundred college-bound seniors in the United States.)

The results are well worth reading. You can find the Pearson Foundation Survey on Students and Tablets overview on our site, or, read the official Summary of Findings online.