VCU and the 2025 Virginia Course Materials Survey

Authors

Abbey Childs, Virginia Commonwealth UniversityFollow

Document Type

Research Report

Publication Date

2025

Description

In 2025, VIVA distributed an updated Virginia Course Materials Survey. Its goal was to build on the first iteration of the survey, providing updated data for the areas explored in the original survey, along with new data to address the changing open and affordable landscape in Virginia. The 2025 survey aimed to answer the following questions:

1. What is the impact of course material costs on educational equity among Virginia students?

2. What course content materials do students find to be most beneficial to their learning?

3. What barriers are presented to students due to course material costs and how can those barriers be categorized and addressed by stakeholders?

With the help of VCU Libraries, VCU Technology Services, and VCU Institutional Research (IRDS), the survey was disseminated to a 20% random sample of VCU students. 452 VCU responses were received (8% response rate). Due to the IRB approved protocols and efforts to maintain respondent anonymity, VCU data is only available on the summary level.

Included is an executive summary, full report, visual overview, and data set for the VCU summary level data, available as percentages, and select student quotes from the free response on the impact of textbook costs on educational progress.

To view the full survey, statewide findings, and corresponding analysis, visit the VIVA website.

Contributor

Chelsea Asante, Trina LaFortune, Miya Travis

Date of Submission

December 2025

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

Is Part Of

VCU Open and Affordable Course Content