Does gender play a role in the acceptance of e-textbooks by students?

Research into the adoption and satisfaction level of academic electronic textbooks (etextbooks) by students continues to proliferate as e-textbooks become more commonplace. To date this research has indicated that either students prefer print textbooks to e-textbooks or the results are inconclusive. Prior research on the overall acceptance of technology suggested that females are significantly less interested and less accepting of technology as compared to males. Would this continue to be true regarding e-textbooks? In this study a survey of the use and satisfaction with e-textbooks was administered to a group of 250 male and female undergraduate students who had used e-textbooks in one or more of their courses at a regionally accredited Mid-South university. The results of this study indicate there is a significant difference between genders in the likelihood of a student to select an e-textbook over a printed textbook in a future class: males are more likely to choose e-textbooks than females. Yet there were no significant differences between females and males regarding satisfaction, usefulness, and ease of use. However, female students made more extensive use of the interactive features of an e-textbook than did male students. This suggests that both publishers and faculty should clearly demonstrate how to use the different features of an e-textbook in order to increase student acceptance.