My beef with Pearson

Graphic by Keven Vaillancourt / The Concordian

We shouldn’t entrust our education to mega corporations.

Last summer was the first time I encountered Pearson face to face. I had to take a class to fill my 12 credits “full time student” quota, and the only choice was an online class taught through Pearson’s online platform, an alternative to eConcordia offered by the company that prints a good portion of our textbooks.

That wasn’t the first time I had heard of the publishing company. Having talked to multiple students and read user feedback online, I now fully understand why the platform is so unpopular with students: it is an international corporation overpricing its products and promoting standardized testing. 

Once I signed up for the online class, I found myself presented with assignments locked behind a paywall. While the midterm and the final were written in person at the SGW campus, I had to buy the $107 textbook, which I no longer have access to, for the assignment codes that came with it, worth 20 per cent of my grade.

This was something very different from eConcordia, where I had taken a few classes previously. I expected something similar: transparency on the course cost, ownership permanence, a usable user interface… Instead, I was taught standardized material developed by a for-profit testing company.

Pearson first got into textbook printing and testing in the 1950s. Having quickly grown with the rapid worldwide population growth and the constant scarcity of educators, they are now a household name in most educational institutions around the globe. 

Receiving my assignment access codes with a $100+ e-textbook was one thing, but not owning the textbook I paid Pearson so much money for is another. Charging students that much for what is essentially a digital loan is a fast way to lose popularity.

The user experience wasn’t pleasant either. While the book provided was confusing to read, navigating Pearson’s online portal with pre-recorded lectures and assignments is far from a pleasant memory for me. Re-visiting past assignments for exam prep requires knowing your way around the website and accessing them in a very specific way. Completing the assignments themselves is also quite painful if you are using a tablet or phone instead of a computer. I had the PC version of the website displayed for me, which meant I had to fight the touchscreen while trying to press a miniature button at the very bottom of the screen. 

For decades, Pearson has been a fervent promoter of standardized testing. It helps them attract more students while minimizing work, since all the grading is done by a machine. I am a firm believer that standardized testing is inaccurate and often ineffective in measuring the student’s knowledge levels. It removes the logical train of thought students should follow to answer a specific question and makes everything only about choosing between pre-established answers.

The poorly designed and overpriced e-learning website left a very bad impression, even after I was done with the course. The lectures recorded by the Concordia professor got me and my peers through the class. The rest of the material provided by Pearson might have done the opposite.

3/10, would not opt for Pearson again.

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