Investigating college students' reading strategies in online versus conventional print-dependent settings

Abstract EN

This study investigates the reading strategies of EFL college students to identify and comparatively analyze the differences between online reading versus printed material reading strategies.

This study draws on the hypothesis that highly strategic readers of printed materials would also be highly strategic online readers.

A mixed-methods approach to research was utilized to answer the quantitative and qualitative questions of the study and confirm the hypothesis of the study.

Analysis of the collected data utilizes quantitative data collected through two surveys and qualitative data collected through a think-aloud protocol, where the researcher interprets verbal responses of the informants in the study and code these responses into categories of the used reading strategies in online and print modes.

As well, scores from a standardized reading comprehension test and a strategy identification questionnaire were used for the analysis.

Results verified the hypothesis of the study and answered the main research questions