A Systematic Review of the Cognitive Impact of Digital Media Modalities on Reading Comprehension in L2

Abstract

The current affordances of ICT have – in the past decade – dramatically increased the exposure of students to the number of various digital texts they use or are exposed to when acquiring an additional language. The print media has been supplemented or even sometimes substituted by the digital media at all levels of education, including higher education and university curricula. Various research has recently been conducted into the role of digital media in L2 acquisition and this paper attempts to systematically summarize the results of this research, with a specific focus on reading comprehension. This systematic review follows the PRISMA guidelines (Page et al., 2021). The 2010-2021 studies from Scopus and the Web of Science dealing with the topic have been collected and analysed. Only experimental studies in peer-reviewed research journal papers have been included in the search. By applying this protocol review, 15 papers were selected for a synthesis. The results were classified as: (a) effect of media on reading comprehension, (b) pedagogical implications, (c) future research directions. The study concludes with some discussion and implications for researchers and practitioners from two perspectives: basic or fundamental Second Language Acquisition (FSLA) and instructed Second Language acquisition (ISLA).