Study on Electronic Journal Reading Behaviour of Social Scientists in Taiwan and Mainland China

Abstract

This study attempts to investigate the electronic journal reading behaviour of social scientists in Taiwan and Mainland China. The main purposes of the study are as follows: to explore the importance of e-journals amongst social scientists' research; to explore the e-journal reading behaviour of Taiwanese and Chinese social scientists; to unearth factors affecting e-journal article reading thereby allowing comparisons to be made between the e-journal reading behaviour of social scientists in Taiwan and Mainland China. Three surveys were carried out at ChengChi University in Taiwan, and Wuhan University and Nanjing University in Mainland China during 2012. The target population was social science faculty members and graduate students of the three universities. Three questionnaire surveys were conducted during January to April 2012, with a total of 668 valid questionnaire responses collected. Analysis of reading e-journal critical incident articles showed that 46.7% were in Chinese and 53.3% in English. Each social scientist in Taiwan and Mainland China read on average 307 e-journal articles and spent about 380 hours annually reading e-journals; they read e-journals mainly for research purposes and the writing of papers. Information regarding the e-journal reading environments, reading methods, reading strategies and reading consequences of social scientists in Taiwan and Mainland China were collected and analysed. In this study four types of e-journal reading behaviour of social scientists in Taiwan and Mainland China are shown, namely; screen browsing; screen based-reading, print reading, and screen-based collocating reading. E-journal reading behaviour of social scientists in Taiwan and Mainland China are studied and the study also illustrates some difference of e-journal reading behaviour between Taiwanese and Chinese social scientists.