On-screen Reading Research Articles

Evidence-Based Online Course Development Practices Using Three Years of Incoming Student Data

Knowledge of university students’ reading speed and learning style preferences allow online course designers to more effectively meet the academic needs of all learners. The present study utilizes three years of incoming student data (N = 1796) from a mid-sized online Christian university to determine whether student’s average online reading speed and learning style preferences differ significantly between declared majors. Results showed that English majors had a faster onscreen reading time than business and psychology majors. Significant betweenmajor differences were also detected for five of the seven learning style preferences. Implications for course designers are discussed.

Effect of Dravidian vernacular, English and Hindi during onscreen reading text: A physiological, subjective and objective evaluation study

Multilingualism has become an integral part of our present lifestyle. India has twenty two registered official languages with English and Hindi being most widely used for all official activities across the nation. As both these languages are introduced later in life, it was hypothesised that comprehensive reading will be better and faster if the native medium was used. Therefore present study aimed to evaluate the differences in performance while using one of the four Indian Dravidian vernaculars (Tamil, Telugu Kannada and Malayalam) and two non-vernacular (English and Hindi) languages for onscreen reading task. A multi-dimensional approach including physiological (Eye movement recording), subjective (Language Experience And Proficiency Questionnaire, LEAP-Q, Legibility rating) and Objective (Reading time and Word processing rate) measurements were used to quantify the effects. Forty-four Indian infantry soldiers from each of the Dravidian language groups participated in the study. Volunteers read aloud two simple story passages onscreen in their respective vernacular and non-vernacular languages using both time bound and self-paced reading mode. Reading time was lower and word processing rate was higher respectively in case of vernacular than non-vernacular. Consideration of fixation count in both the modes of reading indicated better performance with vernaculars. Legibility score was better in Dravidian languages than others. Results indicated that reading text was faster in vernacular media followed by English and Hindi. Use of vernaculars in onscreen text display of high density workstation may therefore be recommended for easier and faster comprehension

Through the Looking Glass: Metacognitive Reading Strategies in Open Distance Learning

This paper firstly describes the cognitive processes involved in acts of reading and the importance thereof in an Open Distance Learning (ODL) environment. Due to the fact that reading is a very recent development in terms of human history, there is no dedicated or inborn cognitive ability devoted to reading. Reading is a complex cognitive activity, drawing upon several more basic neural networks such as vision, speech, sensory experiences and motor activity. The question is also asked whether onscreen reading is going to replace paper-based reading. Is the former going to replace the latter? If so, what are the implications for teaching, especially in an ODL setting? If not, what will be delivered on paper, what will be made available online, and what will overlap or be “hybrid vehicles”? In other words – what should be only in paper, what should only be onscreen, and what should be available in both formats? Whatever the answers to the above questions might turn out to be, one thing is clear and that is that all students, whether they read on paper or online and onscreen, need to be taught meta-cognitive reading strategies. Many students whether they are still in school or at university, or simply life-long learners, are poor readers and lack effective reading strategies. This paper therefore indicates that we need to teach our students not only the course content, but also strategies to read effectively in order to master the course content while reading. Therefore we have to teach students how to read the course content we present to them, whether it is on paper, on- screen or on both. If not, we will have to live with the reality of many shattered dreams and crumpled futures. DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2014.v4n3p283

GLOBALIOJI ANGLŲ KALBA IR LEIDYBOS TENDENCIJOS XX IR XXI AMŽIŲ SANDŪROJE

The paper analyses three important social and cultural trends that reinforced reading in English in non-English-speaking countries. First, English became the lingua franca of academia, and the simultaneous explosive growth of tertiary education increased the number of English speakers globally. Second, English became the language of popular culture and, as such, now dominates global bestseller production. Third, due to the growth of Amazon and other online retailers of electronic and printed books, books in English became readily available in most non-English-speaking countries. The paper will show that in Anglo–Saxon book markets, ebooks have a different cultural role than in continental Europe and other non-English-speaking countries. In the former, ebooks are becoming a mainstream medium for reading fiction. Contrastingly, in the latter, they seem to be predominantly the domain of bilingual readers, and mainstream book markets in local languages remain heavily dominated by printed books. As a result, in contemporary book cultures, printed books and e-books coexist in a kind of dual economy. In Anglo–Saxon markets, this coexistence takes place inside the same linguistic ecosystem, while in non-English-speaking countries, for the time being, the chasm between print and digital bears a strong linguistic mark and consequently represents a new cultural phenomenon. There seem to be cognitive differences between on-paper and onscreen reading; therefore, the paper concludes with the observation that, behind this dual economy, a deeper cultural schism might be hidden, putting the academic exploration of publishing studies and the book market at the centre of a new research paradigm.KEYWORDS: global English, books, e-books, book market, publishing studies, publishing field, onscreen reading, reading.

Updating Best Practices

The best practices presented in textbooks and professional publications provide separate guidelines for paper-based and electronic or “scannable” résumés. This article recommends changing these practices so that writers can prepare one résumé for both paper and electronic delivery. These recommendations focus on three areas. Résumés should be formatted based on eye-tracking research about on-screen reading. Specific guidelines should help writers decide when to include an objective or summary. Keywords should be prioritized over active verbs. Last, résumés still must be formatted for paper but designing for on-screen reading is now equally or more important, and best practices need to reflect this change.

Efficiency in Reading Comprehension: A Comparison of Students' Competency in Reading Printed and Digital Texts.

In this study, survey model was used, for investigating the effect of printed and electronic texts on the reading comprehension levels of teacher candidates. While dependent variable of the research comprises the levels of understanding of the teacher candidates, independent variable comprises the departments of the teacher candidates, types of the texts being read and types of printing. Working group of this research comprises 207 randomly-elected teacher candidates, of the Classroom and Social Studies Teaching and Turkish Teaching Departments, Faculty of Education, Usak University. The result of the research shows that the variables including departments of the teacher candidates and their computer utilization levels are seen not to significantly affect their reading comprehension levels in poetry, narrative, article and newsletter. But there is a stastical significant difference of their reading comprehension levels in printed type of text among the variables for all text types. Key words: Reading, comprehension, on-screen reading, digital texts.

Efficiency in Reading Comprehension: A Comparison of Students' Competency in Reading Printed and Digital Texts.

In this study, survey model was used, for investigating the effect of printed and electronic texts on the reading comprehension levels of teacher candidates. While dependent variable of the research comprises the levels of understanding of the teacher candidates, independent variable comprises the departments of the teacher candidates, types of the texts being read and types of printing. Working group of this research comprises 207 randomly-elected teacher candidates, of the Classroom and Social Studies Teaching and Turkish Teaching Departments, Faculty of Education, UAŸak University. The result of the research shows that the variables including departments of the teacher candidates and their computer utilization levels are seen not to significantly affect their reading comprehension levels in poetry, narrative, article and newsletter. But there is a stastical significant difference of their reading comprehension levels in printed type of text among the variables for all text types. Key words: Reading, comprehension, on-screen reading, digital texts.

Investigation on views and attitudes of students in Faculty of Education about reading and writing on screen

The purpose of this research is to determine points of view and attitudes of students of Faculty of Education about reading and writing on screen. In this research, descriptive survey model is used. The working group includes 254 students of UAŸak University, Faculty of Education. A new measurement tool developed by the researcher was used in this study as a data collection tool. Students in this study express that the most important opportunity of on-screen reading is that they contribute to intertextual meaning establishment by enabling connection to other texts, visuals, etc. in digital media, from the text that is being studied on but the most difficulty stated by the students is eye tiredness. For opportunities of writing on screen, the students express that it enables connections to other texts, visuals, etc. in digital media and that it allows for creation of digital notebook and diary; and for the difficulties of on-screen writing, they express that it can be eye tiring, it can be difficult to use the keyboard and screen instead of pen and paper, and it can cause backache and vertebral ache. Key words: Reading, writing, reading on screen, writing on screen, attitude, e-book

Lättläst, kortläst, snabbläst

Easy, Quick and Short. On Compact Literature in the Digital Era
 Over the last years, various kinds of short fictional and factual prose have risen to increasing levels of popularity. This article argues that this might be explained as resulting from new ways of publishing and distributing short texts online (for instance, the app, Penguin Shorts, Amazon Singles-program), but also proceeds from new on-screen reading habits (i.e. on smartphones, tablets, dedicated readers), and participation in online digital cultures. In many ways, the digital short read is emblematic of Internet’s bit culture and the short attention span of our age: a micro content that is cheap, mobile, easily accessed, and condensed. The paper analyses and gives further details about some of the short read-ventures that have taken place in Sweden and abroad.

Alice Through the Computer Screen: a Study of Literary Reading and Writing on Digital Displays

This article presents a summary and a series of conclusions and reflectionson the digital reading and writing experiences carried out during the years 2009-2010/2010-2011, by the research group LEETHI (Spanish and European Literatures: from text to hypertext) from the University Complutense of Madrid. With the purpose of gathering data regarding the new reading habits introduced by onscreen reading, we deviced a series of experiences organized around three modes: intensive reading through the computer screen, extended reading in e-readers and tablet PCs, and creative digital reading and writing. These experiences have been collected in the work Alicia a través de la pantalla: lecturas literarias en el siglo XXI (CITA: Fundación Germán Sánchez Ruipérez) to appear soon online.

The Social Organisation of Help during Young Children's Use of the Computer

This article examines some of the ways that young children seek and provide help through social interaction during use of the computer in the home. Although social interaction is considered an important aspect of young children's use of computers, there are still few studies that provide detailed analysis of how young children accomplish that social interaction. Conversation analysis of two young children's social interactions during help provides descriptions of the methods and resources used by them to mutually accomplish their activity. Discussion of specific ways of helping establishes how talk and interaction between children may contribute to computer use and acquisition of on-screen reading and writing practices.

College Student Academic Online Reading: A Review of the Current Literature

Having taught to college students for 27 years is amone the hiehliehts of my life. I loved learning about theory and practice; I loved teaching students how to read successfully for college courses; and I loved applying what I learned from colleagues. Durine those years, teaching colleee students how to read online was not an issue. My colleagues and I did instruct students on evaluating websites and using digital library resources, but teaching how to read academic text online was only beginning to be necessary.Now, however, teaching college students how to read online effectively is an important area of concern. Libraries have become digitized with online articles and e-books; e-textbooks are available and used; and instructors routinely assign online articles of some length. It is critical that instructors who teach at the college level understand the theory and practice of academic online reading. The reality of this need became apparent when I listened to a presentation about college students' preferences of paper versus screen (Hamer & McGrath, 2010) at the College Reading and Learning Association's conference in Salt Lake City. During the session, attendees discussed ramifications of the presenters' research, but they also clearly wanted strategies for students. They needed those strategies to take back to their classrooms. I decided then and there to see what the literature says about college student online reading.What follows is a review of the literature on college student online for academic purposes. The review includes an explanation of important terms used in the field; studies of student online preferences, comprehension, and strategies; and problems with online for students. It does not include a critique of the studies mentioned or research earlier than 2003.MethodAfter browsing the literature, I made a grid with a list of keyword sets that came up most often and the databases that seemed to give the most results. I searched each database with every set. The databases were Academic Search Premier, Applied Science and Technology, ERIC, Education Abstracts, ScienceDirect [sic], and Wilson Select Plus. The keyword sets that I used were (a) online + college, (b) transliteracies + college, (c) digital literacy + college + student, (d) information literacy + colleee + reading, (G] colleee + online readme + sender Cf) e-readine + colleee, and fsf) onscreen readme + colleee. The most successful, prolific set was online + college.With one exception (Wilder, 2005), I read only peer-reviewed articles and arbitrarily chose 2003 as the cut-oft date for current literature. The digital world evolves so quickly that I thought earlier articles, most likely written about research from 2002 or earlier, would not reflect the state of students' usage trends. I excluded articles that investigated Enelish-laneuaee-learnine students readme online, colleee faculty online practices, eeneral teaching methods for online environments, online writing, secondary student online reading, and research in third world countries. There are articles in these areas, but I kept a narrow focus for this review.Definition of TermsThe literature of college student online has several terms that appear often enough that an explanation of them seems appropriate.Online reading, onscreen reading, and e-reading are seemingly interchangeable terms that do not appear to be defined in the literature but are assumed to be part of our lay vocabulary. All three mean the of text, video, and graphics on an electronic screen, whether it is a computer, television, or hand-held device. This type of is contrasted to on paper in books, magazines, journals, and from a printer. There was one exception to the definition of online (McCrudden, Magliano, & Schraw, 2011), where it meant moment-tomoment processing of text during reading (p. …

Understanding on-screen reading behaviors in academic contexts: a case study of five graduate English-as-a-second-language students

Undoubtedly, new areas of functionality for electronic texts will come to the fore and create new reading habits and expectations for dealing and interacting with text as electronic texts become dominant in the academic world. These new forms of reading will gradually become as natural as the different activities readers now take for granted, such as searching an online catalog or browsing the web. However, little research has concerned what and how graduate students actually read on a computer screen. This study, therefore, investigated the on-screen reading behaviors of five English-as-a-second-language graduate students in different academic disciplines. The results showed that students had low preference and tendency toward reading texts that required careful reading on a computer screen because they believed that reading screen-based texts limited their use of strategies. However, most students chose online articles when searching for references. In addition, students' on-screen reading behaviors were influenced by several factors, such as their reading purposes, opportunity to read screen-based texts, applications of reading strategies and second-language proficiency. By making sense of on-screen reading occurring specifically in the academic context, this study hopes to enhance teachers' and researchers' understanding and to provide the basis for improved pedagogical practices in education.

The phenomenology of on-screen reading: University students' lived experience of digitised text

As reading shifts from the page to the screen, research focuses primarily upon the nature and effects of hypertextual reading. However, many of the texts that university students read for academic purposes are digitised texts that begin life as paper-based books and papers and are read on-screen. Applying the principles and practices of hermeneutic phenomenology, this study sought to gain insight into university students' experiences of reading digitised texts such as e-books and Portable Document Format files. Open-ended interviews were conducted with 10 students. A thematic analysis of the interviews revealed six main themes: the disappearing page, to have but not to hold, the ever present screen, getting in focus, the disciplined body and finding what I need. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An exploratory study of visual and psychological correlates of preference for onscreen subpixel‐rendered text

AbstractFont‐rendering technologies play a critical role in presenting clear and aesthetic fonts to enhance the experience of reading from computer screens. This article presents three studies investigating visual and psychological correlates of people's preferences toward different onscreen text enhancements such as ClearType developed by Microsoft. Findings suggested that (a) people's acuity and hue sensitivity were two major factors that affect their preferences to ClearType's color filtering of subpixels on fonts, and (b) specific personality traits such as disagreeableness also could correlate with people's impressions of different onscreen text enhancements that were used. These empirical data would inform digital typographers and human–computer interaction scientists who aim to develop better systems of onscreen reading.

A Small Scale Study into the Effect that Text & Background Colour has on Processing and Self-Correction Rates for Childrens’ On-Screen Reading

A Small Scale Study into the Effect that Text & Background Colour has on Processing and Self-Correction Rates for Childrens’ On-Screen Reading

Usability Evaluation of Digital Flipviewer® Online Flipbooks

The rise in onscreen reading has created a need for software products that allow users to comfortably view documents onscreen. Two studies were conducted to examine the usability of E-BookTM Systems Digital FlipViewer® software that enables users to read FlipBooks, interactive three-dimensional books with pages that ‘flip’ or turn onscreen. Study 1 evaluated user performance on completing eleven tasks with the FlipViewer® using a magazine format. Study 2 evaluated user performance of finding courses using a FlipBook format of a university's schedule of courses. Results from Study 1 revealed participants had difficulty using the unique features of FlipViewer®, but overall, were satisfied with their experience viewing a document in this format. Results of Study 2 showed participants completed tasks quicker using the FlipBook format of the university course schedule when compared to a website format.

Digital versus Print: Energy Performance in the Selection and Use of Scholarly Journals

SummaryAdvances in digital technology and the growth of information networks are revolutionizing human activity. The Internet has been championed as a new tool for environmental improvement. A life‐cycle energy analysis of digital libraries, a growing application of information technology, was conducted to test this premise.Life‐cycle models were compared for journal collections in digital and traditional formats. The basis for analysis was the amount of information in a typical scientific journal article (∼12 pages), which is equivalent to 0.97 hr of on‐screen reading time. Digital system elements such as servers, routers, laser printers, and computer workstations were modeled. Journal production, delivery, storage, binding, interlibrary loan, and photocopying were examined for the traditional system. Building‐related infrastructure, office paper, and personal transportation of the library patron were analyzed for both cases. In all, the study incorporated nearly 30 model elements, 90 input variables, and numerous fixed parameters.Five primary scenarios were constructed to consider increasing levels of complexity. Scenario 1 assumes only one reading per article (unit of analysis). Additional scenarios assume 1,000 readings and vary the following: laser printing, photocopying, and personal transportation. Energy consumed by the digital collection ranged between 4.10 and 216 MJ. The traditional system realized burdens from 0.55 to 525 MJ. Four significant effects were uncovered: (1) Energy consumption per unit was highly influenced by the number of readings per article. (2) Networking infrastructure by itself had a relatively small effect on total energy consumed by the digital system. (3) When personal transportation was considered, its effects tended to dominate. (4) The impact of making personal copies varied. Photocopying always increased energy consumption, whereas laser printing actually saved energy when it substituted for on‐screen reading.

Evaluating On-line Training Modules in the Oregon Master Gardener Program

In conjunction with two noncredit, on-line training modules for the Oregon Master Gardener Program, a team of educators and web designers developed an evaluation tool to help determine the effectiveness of these modules for training Master Gardeners. The evaluation tool includes questions on technical issues, organization and presentation of the module, navigation throughout the module, content and user satisfaction. Data collected from participants via the tool in 1999 on the basic botany module, highlighted areas that needed improvement including reducing the amount of on-screen reading (organization and presentation) and an inability of participants to access video clips and animations (user satisfaction). Overall, participants gave both modules high marks in each of the five categories. Major modifications made to the soils and fertilizers module in 2000 were likely responsible for the improved organization/presentation rating (2.4 in 1999 to 1.9 in 2000 where 1 = highly positive ranking; 5 = highly negative ranking) and the user satisfaction rating (2.5 in 1999 to 2.0 in 2000). Both years the overall acceptability of the course was high 1.45 (1 = highly positive ranking; 5 = highly negative ranking) and 1.80, 1999 and 2000 respectively, and has encouraged the team to continue developing on-line training modules for the Oregon Master Gardener Program.