Within the ibm galaxy: exploring differences in online processes and comprehension outcomes between reading on screen and reading on paper
- Autores: Pablo Delgado Herrera
- Directores de la Tesis: Ladislao Salmerón González (dir. tes.)
- Lectura: En la Universitat de València ( España ) en 2020
- Idioma: español
- Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: Manuel Perea Lara (presid.), Yvonne Kammerer (secret.), Paul van den Broek (voc.)
- Programa de doctorado: Programa de Doctorado en Lectura y Comprensión por la Universidad de Salamanca y la Universitat de València (Estudi General)
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- Resumen
With the pervasive use of digital devices for learning, it is crucial to know whether reading on screen exerts any influence on text comprehension. Nevertheless, previous findings are still inconclusive. This dissertation tried to shed more light on this issue, and aimed to test the Shallowing hypothesis as a possible explanation for the detrimental effect of reading on screen previously found by some studies. This hypothesis proposes that poorer comprehension outcomes when reading on screen are caused by a lessened cognitive engagement with texts in this medium. To that ends, we first conducted a meta-analysis including the existing literature from 2000 to 2017 comparing reading comprehension across media. The results showed poorer comprehension outcomes for reading on screen than for reading in print. Furthermore, some moderators qualified this effect. The on-screen inferiority was found to be larger among those studies that used expository texts (vs. narrative texts) and those that required participants to read under time constraints (vs. self-paced reading time). These findings pointed out that the medium effect especially appears when the reading task demands increased mental effort. In addition, we found that the medium effect is larger among the more recent studies, so in younger generations.
In addition, we conducted two experimental studies aiming to test the Shallowing hypothesis of the on-screen inferiority for reading comprehension. Thus, the first study compared readers’ engagement, as measured by readers’ eye-movements, while reading several expository texts both on screen and in print. It also examined readers’ reading comprehension outcomes and comprehension monitoring. A sample of 116 undergraduates read tree texts on a printed booklet and three texts on a tablet. Some of the participants self-paced their study time, whereas the rest of the sample read under time pressure. Our findings indicated that, regardless of the reading-time frame, participants fixated longer when reading in printed texts, and that they were more accurate in this medium when monitoring their comprehension. Accordingly, they scored higher on the comprehension questions, although this effect only approached significance with a conservative two-tail test.
Our third study compared readers’ on-task attention, metacognitive monitoring, and text comprehension when reading a long expository article in print or on screen. One hundred and forty undergraduates were allocated to one of four experimental condition, varying in the reading medium (desktop computers vs. the printed magazine) and the reading time-frame (self-paced vs. time pressure). We found that only those participants who read in print reduced their mindwandering (i.e., they increased on-task sustained attention) when the task required to read under time pressure. Thus, in this time-frame condition, the participants who read on screen scored lower on the comprehension test. In contrast, when reading time was self-paced, the comprehension scores were similar regardless of the medium. Finally, there were no differences in metacognitive monitoring of comprehension between the experimental groups.
Altogether, our results revealed that reading on screen yields poorer comprehension outcomes, especially under time constraints. This effect seems to be caused by a lessened cognitive engagement in this medium. Therefore, our findings support the Shallowing hypothesis of the on-screen inferiority for reading. Future research lines and the main implications of our findings are discussed.
