Dear MEL Topic Readers,
The power of print in a digital world
Should students read on screen or in paper? While some countries and educational communities are putting heavy emphasis on shifting to digital learning, many parents, teachers and policymakers seem still reluctant to make that move so aggressively or in some cases not at all. It is a controversial issue as many of those adults studied and read in paper when there were young. The question is if there is a considerable difference between the two media when students read and understand what’s written.
A new research found that there are some advantages and disadvantages in the two media when students read and are asked questions. Students preferred reading digitally probably because the students who were surveyed are used to it. They showed no significant difference in reading and answering general questions of the text in two media but performed better in paper reading when it came to specific questions.
If students;
- can read texts faster on screen than in paper,
- and can understand what’s written in the text on screen as well as in paper,
- but can answer specific questions not as correctly on screen as in paper,
what should educators do to teach or guide them to do better?
Whether you take this finding as a challenge or problem to adopt a new reading style, one thing for sure is that there will be significantly fewer paper documents to read or write in the future.
Enjoy reading and think which way students should learn, in the very way you learned or in a way they will be using.
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