1) The document discusses research on the impacts of on-screen reading (OSR) versus on-paper reading (OPR) for students. Several studies found OSR led to poorer reading comprehension than OPR. 2) While students generally prefer OPR, they often choose OSR for pragmatic reasons like cost and convenience. OSR fails to provide the same rich sensory experience as OPR. 3) The document calls for educational institutions to minimize economic barriers to format choice, provide training to help students adapt strategies for OSR, and clearly identify importance of readings to help students make informed decisions.

1. Selected Papers of Impacts of Digitization 2015 (ID’15), The University of Melbourne
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On-screen reading- comprehension and beyond
Keywords: on-screen; reading; education; human value
Introduction
As computers, tablets and e-readers are prevalent today, on-screen reading (OSR) has become an integral
part of everyday life. Students, especially post-secondary students, are required to read extensive journal
articles and textbooks to prepare for classes or write assignments. However, the impact of OSR on students
has not been researched fully before. Majority of literature focuses only on the difference of comprehension
or reading speed between OSR and on-paper reading (OPR) instead of other human values. This paper
intends to explore different perspectives of OSR on education in literature to present a more holistic view
of this issue. It is concluded that the human value of students is largely neglected in OSR for education.
Although students prefer OPR which tends to yield deeper engagement and understanding, they have to
choose OSR mainly for economic reasons and they are not well trained to adapt to OSR.
This study will first explore OSR’s impact on comprehension, then try to understand students’ perception
of OSR and finally examine their reading preference and behavior.
Comprehension
A body of literature attempts to use quantitative analysis to measure the difference in comprehension
between OSR and OPR. In spite of difference in comprehension test and controlled variables, most of
research shows that compared with OPR, OSR leads to poorer comprehension.
Mangen, Walgermo and Brønnick (2013) have conducted a reading comprehension test with 72 tenth grader
in classroom settings in Norway. There are major two phases in this experiment. First, through a pretest to
measure preexisting reading comprehension, these students are found to have similar comprehension level.
Then, in the main survey conducted four weeks later, these students were randomized into two groups, read
texts on screen or paper, and then answered comprehension questions on screen in one hour. They found
out that OSR students were more likely to get lower scores on reading comprehension tests than OPR
students.
Their research is widely referred to for several reasons. First, Mangen has been an expert in cognitive impact
of reading medium. Second, this study uses multiple dimensions to measure comprehension and exclude
the effect of factors such as pretest result or sex. Third, testing material (i.e. text or questions) are designed
by well-known institutions such as National Centre for Reading Education and Research in Norway and
OECD Programme for International Student Assessment.
However, as participants were not surveyed about their experience and their behavior(e.g. highlight or
annotate) during reading was not measured, Mangen et al. (2013) could only refer to other studies to assume
that this difference could be caused by scrolling, switching between windows (i.e. text and question) or
visual fatigue. Moreover, as their research mainly measures the comprehension during test with a time limit
and fewer external distraction, their conclusion about presentation format’s impact on reading performance
may not be applicable to real life tasks such as reading to prepare for course or assignment.
Chen, Cheng, Chang, Zheng and Huang (2014) also tried to compare the comprehension rate of reading on
paper, computer and tablet with 90 college students in China. Ninety participants were randomly divided
to three groups, read same text with same layout on paper, tablet and computer and then answered multiple
choice and summarization question on paper to measure their shallow and deep level comprehension,
respectively. Chen et al. (2014) have claimed that their research confirms Mangen’s findings that
comprehension in OPR is better for comprehension and proves assumption that scrolling can hamper

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comprehension in OSR. It also raises the awareness of correlation between technological familiarity and
comprehension score.
However, their research has serious flaw which can invalidate their findings. Because individual difference
is not measured or excluded, it calls into question how much of difference in comprehension can be
attributed to media and familiarity of device.
Jeong (2012) also examined comprehension level between print-books and e-books with 56 sixth grade
students and found out that print-book led to better comprehension. One strength of Jeong’s study is that a
critical flicker/fusion frequency (CFF) threshold was adopted to measure eye fatigue and confirmed that
OSR could result in significantly greater eye fatigue than OPR. Another strength is that all participants were
involved in both OPR and OSR, and a pre-test was used to ensure difficulty of question for OSR and OPR
were similar. Lastly, this research also included questionnaire after test and found that participants were
satisfied with e-book but strongly preferred print-book.
However, Margolin, Driscoll, Toland, and Kegler’s (2013) research on 90 individuals (18-25 years) did not
find significant difference of comprehension among computers, papers and tablets. It differs from above
research as their participants had unlimited time to read the text but couldn’t revisit the text once they
jumped to the questions after each text. Their research could be more conclusive if authors had examined
the reading time of each group, because students usually have tight schedules for assignment due dates or
classes. In addition, as participants were divided to test one medium only, pretest comprehension level and
other individual factors should be measured and excluded.
By comparing quality of report produced by 67 participants, Subrahmanyam, Michikyan, Clemmons,
Carrillo, Uhls and Greenfieldet (2013) also tried to measure comprehension of OSR in simulated real-life
settings. In this study, participants were divided to three groups, instructed to read and synthesize material
though a designated medium (i.e. paper, computer only and computer with internet and printer) with a time
limit. They found that report quality was significantly reduced only when participants use a computer with
the internet and printer because of the distracting effect of the internet.
Perception
There is also a series of sociological studies trying to understand students’ perception of these two media.
Table 1: Perception of OSR
Perception of OSR
Rose
(2011)
Fortunati & Vincent
(2014)
Taipale
(2014)
Farinosi, Lim, &
Roll (2016)
Scrolling, page fit, font size and layout
inhibit reading
√ √ √ √
Lack feel of control: cannot hold digital
document in hands, or take extensive notes
√ √ √ √
Strong awareness of the screen: reflective
surface cause distraction
√ ˣ ˣ ˣ
Conscious effort to focus: navigation,
relocating oneself on text, external
distractions (e.g. email, messages)
√ √ √ √
Limited choice of posture and location √ √ √ √
Very goal oriented reading strategies such
as keyword search
√ √ √ √

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Rose (2011) used open-end interviews with 10 university students and thematic analysis to understand
students experience with digitalized course material such as e-book or scholarly paper. While participants
and researcher admitted that they were not impartial about OSR and OPR, this research represents an early
effort to understand this change from student’s perspective and present six main themes regarding OSR in
Table 1. In addition, it discovers that students were adapting to OSR by developing strategies such as
turning off email or highlighting on digital document.
As part of research project New Possibilities for Print and Media Packaging: Combining Print with Digital,
Fortunati and Vincent (2014), Taipale (2014) and Farinosi et al. (2016) all used qualitative content analysis
on essays produced by 255 university students in total across Italy, Finland, UK and Germany. In the essays,
all students are asked to answer four exactly same open questions about their perception about OSR and
OPR.
The results confirm five out of six themes by Rose (2011) as reflective screens should probably be addressed
by technological advancement. Their studies also generate some new insights by pointing out that “reading
is the Achille’s heel of the digitalisation process” (Fortunati & Vincent, 2014, p. 10) because OSR
technology fails to deliver the multi-sensorial reading experience as OPR does. In addition, they illustrate
the cross-cultural preference for OPR and point out the fact that students are combining OSR and OPR, and
choosing them based on typology and length of text.
Preference, decision and strategies
Aforementioned perceptions lead to further research to understand students’ preference and actual choice
of reading medium. Surprisingly, it is the research in Librarian Journal that proves that there is a decision
burden (Rose, 2011) for students to choose between OSR and OPR.
Figure 1: Five categories of factors influencing the reader’s choice between print and screen based (Source: Keller 2012)
Keller (2012) instructed 12 students to use photo-diaries to document reading behavior over three days and
then interviewed them to support her framework regarding reading medium choice as shown in Figure 1
above. It is found that for academic reading, students’ decision about reading medium are based on rational

4. Selected Papers of Impacts of Digitization 2015 (ID’15), The University of Melbourne
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criteria such as the perceived importance, length or urgency of text instead of their preference for OPR.
Students seek OPR only for primary or long text and this choice can be overruled for practical consideration
(e.g. keyword search or urgent access) (Keller, 2012). Moreover, the author alerts about distractions during
OSR and emphasizes on learners’ need for effective strategies to concentrate during OSR.
Foasberg (2014) conducted diary-based qualitative study on 19 college students’ reading habit. Its finding,
that students has tendency to use OPR for long-form and academic reading with deep engagement need,
confirms results in Kelly’s (2012) research. In addition, Foasberg (2014) points out that this tendency was
in part due to limited annotation techniques mentioned in previous section.
Mizrachi (2015) surveyed 400 university students online to gather information about their academic reading
preference and behavior. The result also shows that most students prefer OPR over OSR for learning and
believe OPR is better for deep learning outcomes. However, other factors such as cost and time of obtaining
print material, perceived importance and value of material, length of text affect their decisions and behavior,
which mirrors the economic factors in research by Keller (2012). Moreover, Zipf’s Principle of Least Effort
and information economics are used to explain why ease of accessibility and perceived value of reading
can override students’ preference of OPR (Mizrachi, 2015). Moreover, Mizrachi (2015) went a step further
to point out that affordability of text in print can cause a “print divide” in which student with lower socio-
economic background are forced to choose the least expensive reading medium and compromise on
learning experience.
This paradox between preference for OPR and the settlement for OSR is best reflected in the research by
Vandenhoek (2013). Among 630 students surveyed online, 74% of them prefer OPR but students in general
are reluctant to print many articles due to economic pressures (Vandenhoek, 2013). This research also
showed that low rate for digital annotation mainly resulted from lack of knowledge and suggested to give
students explicit training for reading medium they prefer (Vandenhoek, 2013).
Regarding reading strategies, Subrahmanyam’s (2013) also found that taking notes on separate paper, which
was also the most popular choice to interact with text in Vandenhoek’s (2013) research, can improve report
quality for OSR and therefore advise students to be more strategic about reading medium and note-taking
in reading tasks.
Conclusion
To conclude, students’ human values of OSR are not well considered when educational institutions are
widely adopting electronic journals articles and textbooks. Compared with OPR, OSR tends to result in
poorer comprehension, introduces distraction such as the internet and fails to provide multi-sensorial
reading experience. Although almost all students show preference for OPR over OSR, economic factors
(e.g. cost, convenience, availability, and time) play a determining role in their actual choice and may even
cause a “print divide”. In addition, although some students are adopting some strategies to adapt to OSR,
most of them are not informed or trained to adopt effective strategies to improve their OSR comprehension
or experience.
It is recommended that educational institutions to (1) minimize the difference of economic factors for OSR
and OPR so that students can choose them more based on preference and merits. (2) offer students the
choice of both OSR and OPR whenever they can (3) provide training of reading strategies for OSR (4)
clearly indicate the value of readings (i.e. must-read, should-read and optional) so that it would be easier
for students to make the decision.
(Word count: 1994)

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