Enhancing the Readership of Teacher Students With Digital Book Subscription Services

Abstract

This article aims to illustrate a 7-month trial of digital book subscription services in teacher education. Student teachers of the University of Turku in Finland were encouraged to implement the service as part of their free time reading. The experiences of the digital subscription service were investigated using a questionnaire, and data were analyzed through a combination of qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis. The aim of the study was to consider the value of digital book subscription services in terms of reading for pleasure and to describe the readership of teacher students as well as their assessment of digital book subscription services as a pedagogical approach for supporting the reading of primary school students. The results indicated that digital book subscription services might enhance the readership of occasional readers and that audiobook services should be implemented more frequently in education since they seem to connect reading to other free time activities. More effort should be placed in supporting the readership of teacher students in teacher education. Currently, the attitude and amount of reading rely primarily on childhood experiences.