How digital reading can affect reading comprehension

‘My Father, My Mother, My Brothers, My Sisters, and Lovely Kids’, As the pulse beats I’ll stay grateful for your endless favor. Success as a cycle of growth dotted with obstacles to overcome and hard mind-numbing times but with my supervisor Dr. HafedhIbrahim Al-Shihi, the challenges in that lies behind research were resolved. Dr. Hafedh is a talented instructor, mentor, passionate scientist, role model and wise beyond his experience. Adil Al-Busaidi for keeping me abreast of the scientific developments. Finally, a great thank is owed to IS instructors and students for their enthusiasm who so graciously agreed to participate in my study. Abstract A serious debate with crucial and fundamental questions are still arisen by scholars and researchers who wondered on how the new reality of digital reading can affect reading comprehension and cause change in their understanding of literacy, information retention, and long-term learning? Mirroring the worldwide debates on digital reading, this study explores the impacts of both reading modes (digital vs printed) upon the level of reading comprehension of university students (N=181) in the informative textual structure reading.

Building on the concept of reading as a human-technology interaction, this study captures how reading actually works as a process of combining paradigms of assessment on psychological and physiological dimension with measures of a number of potentially mediating variables pertaining like interface characteristics, text characteristics and readers’ characteristics to further determine how reading media could affect reading comprehension. To achieve this objective, a quasi-experimental within subjects ‘design was employed to assess reading comprehension performance with printed and digital reading in higher educational context. CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Chapter Overview This chapter laid the foundation for understanding the fundamental core of research. It outlined an overview of the research by presenting the preface to study to provide a context for the problem statement formulation.

The problem statement is structured to highlight the center focus of the research area that needs to be addressed. Arising from the previous sections, the research objectives and research questions are pointed out to give readers a groundbreaking view of the research notion. Such merits are the interactivity and immediacy in accessing information (Chen and Chen 2014). Over the last few decades, the emergence of technology had moved reading from print to screens to provide 24/7 access to reading materials through online accounts keeping pace with the technology-driven culture and staying relevant with the information age (Tanner 2014). Certainly, assistive technologies of reading are taking place as reading platforms that bear with the newest waves of technology to allow students to read actual books (Baron 2015).

However, with the keen interest in digital medium usage to enhance reading and education as whole, the transition from paper-based to screen-based reading invited the theorists and critics to ponder the live turn of modern culture and started to raise basic questions like what differences the reading media being screen or paper create, and more fraught questions to examine the impact of these technologies on reading abilities and cognitive processes (Clowes 2014). We tend to treat reading as a skill learned at childhood stage that had a well-defined end. However, research on reading is on people’s mind. A fast-paced plot of reading research went through the scientific studies that raised perennial questions on reading comprehension with the relation to linguistic knowledge, information processing and interpretation, reading brain, reading skills, and long list.

With curiosity, reading in the digital age perceived the intention of scholars. Digital reading technologies are expanded but raised outcomes of an inevitable processes, consequent on generational profound changes on different perspectives related to neuroscience and psychology including human artificial memory (Peters and Jandrić 2016). Situated within radical concordance of various media of digital reading, reading is at the core concern of experts in reading fields who are worried about the young brains that faced the digital cultures pervasive. The condition of “digital birth” points to be more existential characteristics of carrying the features of non-linearity reading (Simanowski 2015) that may affect understanding, information retention and cause even more a muted emotional response to the text (Saaris 2016). Furthermore, digital reading is tailor-made for consuming glop’s of information while deep reading of a complex text is less likely to be achieved (Baron 2015).

Reading has a continued focus. The incredible appeal to use digital devices and technologies significantly impacts reading comprehension and leads to profound distrust for the read content (Young 2014). In a text-saturated world and behind embarking digital reading technologies, massive number of studies were conducted to examine the process of digital reading adoption in educational institutions, while the digital natives’ perception towards using digital readers and the increase popularity of digital reading use in education sphere brought a debate on what we consider to be educationally worthy when the digital reading supplements the conventional reading (Leino 2014). The intent of this study is to offers a distinctive perspective on the assessment of reading comprehension from convectional and digital technologies media. It further, addresses the gap on digital reading comprehension assessment considering different, but related measures to assess comprehension level for university’s students.

The enthusiasm for this research aims to: 1. Assess the impacts of reading modes (digital vs. paper) on university students’ reading comprehension a. Whether students read on digital or printed format, their ability to comprehend the information remains a critical literacy issue in educational institutions (Shapiro, Fritschmann et al. It is a significance to elucidate how digital reading influences student’s comprehension and knowledge construction. In an educational context of a print-centric textbook- based curriculum, the absence of established research methodology for the assessment of student’s comprehension represents a gap on how ready students are to read and interpret the information to construct knowledge (Leu, Everett‐Cacopardo et al. Research precisely on how technologies impacted reading comprehension while reading from screens, and then meaning-making for new knowledge construction among university students perceives a deeper understanding.

Furthermore, students’ perception of digital reading spurs considerable thought and in-depth analysis that yet be susceptible to a clear-cut answer of how does students’ perception and reading preference impacts reading processes and comprehension level. Digital Reading Digital reading is a multimodal reading that engages multiple sensory channels and platforms as interfaces to access extant textualities. Digital Text Digital text refers to various types of non-print text that includes: a linear text in a digital format, a nonlinear text with hyperlinks, a text with integrated media, and a text with options for response 
(Allen 2013). Information and Communications Technology (ICT) 5. ICT is an expanded term for Information Technology (IT) that emphasize the part of bound together interchanges and the mix of media transmission, PCs and essential endeavor programming, middleware, capacity, sound, visual frameworks, to empower clients to get to, store, transmit, and control data (Bhattacharya and Ghosh 2017).

Reading Comprehension Reading comprehension is a holistic process of simultaneously extracting and constructing a meaning from a written text (Sánchez and Parra 2017) through the interaction and engagement as the reader bring background knowledge to reach a new thought by synthesizing what has been learnt from the text (Tarchi 2017). Furthermore, a section of research gap illustrates the flaws and gaps in previous studies that must be researched. CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Towards a critical assessment, research methodology outlines the way to systematically solve the outlined research problem. This chapter holds a discussion on the pathway for conducting the research so that the experimental research design, data collection and analysis procedures are employed to gain a new knowledge and the findings can be linked with the research objectives.

Furthermore, this chapter implies to think about the analytic and pragmatic limitations that research imposes. CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS ANALYSIS The chapter reports a concise summary of the whole research findings. It lays the rationale of the study that moves from general background on digital reading and reading comprehension to specific information about the research focus. The chapter constructed research problem, research objectives, research questions, significance and contribution of the research to add to knowledge in the fields of digital reading and reading comprehension. Furthermore, this chapter provides clarification of the key terms and it illustrates how thesis is structured. The next chapter holds the review of the literature to synthesize and critically analyze the findings of the current knowledge. CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.

New communities of millennial (digital natives) are ready to plunge into a new phase of ICT in which a digital lifestyle creates a constant contact with digital media that they grow up in (Kubiatko 2013), whereas the older generations “digital immigrants” weaned on digital reality. ICT influence is hastily transmitting technological developments to daily life and providing fast information accessibility (Topu and Goktas 2012). Education is not excluded, the significance of ICT and the subsequent emergence of the “knowledge-based” society give ICT a priority to be integrated in teaching and learning at all levels of schooling (Wambiri and Ndani 2017). The innovative use of ICT navigates the twenty-first century to a great technological fix for revolutionized educational systems to generate so-called knowledge society (Riis 2015).

However, ICT has developed hype feelings of puzzlement and estrangement to some extent (Riis 2015), since the prevalent praxis of ICT has brought a contemporary philosophy on the ‘‘use of technology’’ that is not only a matter of evaluating the material artifact and its immediate intended functions, but its effects deserve more concern as it depends on how it is used in various contexts (Coeckelbergh 2015). These quick transformations and progressions are staggering to promote modern solutions for educational purposes to promise smarter, happier, better educated with more fulfilled learners (Jonassen 2013). The potential mix of ICT in instructive conditions makes a spine for instructive educational modules and empowers students to be beneficial handlers of learning(Shanmugam, Srinivas et al. At abroad sense, ICT goes about as stimulant that builds understudies' inspiration, enhances self-idea and dominance of essential aptitudes, encourages systematic reasoning and interdisciplinary investigations, by making an understudy focused learning process for higher-arrange thinking abilities and better review through advanced mode(Madhuri 2016).

The various activities of ICT extend the ideas of computerized proficiency to envelop a more extensive structure of utilizing PCs and web as a key device of learning(Mac Callum, Jeffrey et al. In higher education context, ICT is impetus to incorporate bespoke solutions to meet with learning environments needs, whether basic ICT services such as provision of end user devices (CHELLADURAI and PITCHAMMAL 2016) or the provision of a high speed, and best wireless infrastructure enabling remote access to use virtual learning environments (Bergen, French et al. Albeit, electronic books are supported with different highlights when contrasted with printed partners, the procurement of eBooks in the advanced education is as yet a cautious stance since the acknowledgment of eBooks is checked by social protection in numerous nations(Eicker-Nel and Matthee 2014).

The Adoption of Digital-Text in Education Computerized content or electronic content is the introduction of a printed messages on screen(Sukmawati 2013)holding the properties of dynamic methods for exchanging data, instability and blend of alphabetic and inventive data(Bykov and Leshchenko 2016). The advanced content is shown in such organization for simplicity and quick perusing to coordinate the perusing abilities of a peruser(Kurose 2014). Computerized content is a convoluted wonder that takes a content to new depictions including straight and nonlinear arrangements, a content coordinated with media, a solitary portrayal with various messages or organized, that isn't simply confined to composed organization yet enlivened realistic or picture with verbal data(Os 2014). The digitization of a text is crafted to evolve new forms of text representation.

eTextbooks has been characterized as an extraordinary sort of eBook that shows its substance as per paper book style created by educational programs guidelines to meet the understudies' perusing propensities and encourage arranging learning exercises (Chen, Gong et al. The defenders researchers of Textbooks contend that eTextbooks have favorable circumstances of intuitiveness, across the board availability and compactness over the conventional printed reading material that give just straight and settled materials(Jang, Yi et al. Be that as it may, getting a handle on the upsides and downsides of eTextbooks is as yet a basic and testing civil argument to scientists and experts(Gerhart, Peak et al. 2015)where the site of books culture slams into the developing computerized culture in the late twentieth century(Tyner 2014).

To dive deeper into adoption state of eTextbooks across the globe, (DeNoyelles, Raible et al. KSA for example, has an ambitious plan to drop all printed books from schools and replace them with digital books by 2020 (Habib Toumi 2017). UAE is also inspired by advanced technologies to digitized books, it launched an interactive reading platform “Darfa” to be a quantum leap forward providing books and academic syllabuses digitally. It further provides access to scientific material and any array of digital and audio books (Gulf. News 2016). In Oman’s higher education, the practice of using digital materials in courses is highly prevalent and the presence of such materials is already in class use. The brilliant side of understudies' discernment towards eTextbooks reflects what most understudies in eTextbooks like, for example, moderateness, availability, lightweight, and highlights of catchphrase look(Baek and Monaghan 2013), (Doering, Pereira et al.

2012)included, the intuitive segments of eTextbooks, liveliness, pictures, hyperlinks, and supplementary materials installed into eTextbooks are turned out to be a profitable showing device as their highlights give more variety and wealthier learning openings. eBooks are approaching forty years old. Yet, what is as amazing as their longevity is the lack of acceptance (Herring 2014) as superior to the printed counterparts. That’s why the popularity of eBooks is at called into question by the readers who insisted to use print books (Smyth and Carlin 2012). The study elucidated that, the slow adoption is attributed to e-content developers who didn’t take into account how students use information for academic achievement and success and that creates a gap between technology savvy in which students live and student’s resistance to completely give papers up (McNeish, Foster et al.

Another research stated that, one of the root causes of slow adoption of digital textbooks is imputed to greater preferences of reading from printed materials (Prasad and Usagawa 2014) for academic cover-to-cover reading (Sackstein, Spark et al. Similarly, researchers have highlighted that, the hesitance to use eBooks is related to their significant effects on student’s reading process and consequences on deep reading and reading comprehension. As of (Seok and DaCosta 2016) confirmed that students use digital reading for entertainment purposes while they use printed text for serious learning that requires long period of focus to comprehend information. Notwithstanding the continuous advancement of eBooks and eTextbooks, reading comprehension still seems to be the best indicator of the presence of each reading platform that ought to suit different readers in different situations (Tanner 2014).

The antique meaning of printed perusing is delineated by(Garrett 1966)as "the demonstration of reproducing from the printed page the author's thoughts, emotions, states of mind, and tangible impressions fastened as long as peruser can remember to tolerate with the new thoughts found in the printed page". Significantly more open, (Carioli and Peru 2016)saw print perusing as a dynamic development of content importance by incorporating the new data to existing foundation. The term print perusing is likewise alluded to established, regular or conventional perusing that makes individuals positively get a handle on what they have perused(Wang 2014). Printed reading is primarily a convenient approach for knowledge construction. The nature of printed reading reflected the value of limited hepatic interaction between the text and the reader like touching and seeing (TAVŞANLI and KALDIRIM) to activate the role of readers and reading became to be seen as a process of constructing meaning.

Textbook is considered as a source of information that is arranged by the structure of a certain basic science to expose the material on knowledge or science of a subject matter (Widyahening and Sari 2017). Although, a textbook is the first source of knowledge and new discipline discovery, it is often attacked for its complexity, illegibility of ideological content (Jacob 2014). Traditional or printed text as (Grande and Pontrello 2016)asserted 'turned into an obstruction for some perusers' a result of its constraint which thwarts perusers to pick the presence of the content including content size, content shading, or content dispersing. It additionally confines the entrance to supplemental backings, for example, content to-discourse, emphasize of voice, the speed at which the content is perused and access to terms definitions and so on.

It isn't sufficiently adaptable to cook for understudies' particular needs since it can't be convenient redone for an assortment of learning targets(Tsang, Yuen et al. 2013): Table 2. 1: Digital Reading Markets Category Market Player Official Website Reader Device Amazon’s Kindle Amazon www. amazon. com Apple’s iPad Apple www. apple. vitalsource. com Google Play Books Google play. google. com/books Digital reading as many scholars agreed, it encourages “reading on the prowl” (Baron 2015). The observations on digital reading has generally been borne out a change in reader’s behaviors of one-time reading, non-linear reading ,browsing, keyword spotting and scanning (Freund, Kopak et al. The most prominent of what has been discussed in these studies reflects the fact that, reading from print is efficacious for deeper information retention and knowledge (Walsh 2016).

However, digital reading is the root of a decline in reading comprehension and causes the development of surface reading as it lacks the ability to promote deep reading and to sustain a prolonged engagement with reading materials, hence it decreases readers’ capacity to concentrate, contemplate and engage with information resources (Aberšek and Aberšek 2013). As such scholars have called for further coverage of a wide range of questions to identify the nature of differences between reading from paper and digital formats along with the possible causes; the observed differences are being discussed as a matter of reading preference, reading rate or speed and comprehension deficit: The preference is a part of human factors folklore that reflects user’s encouraging acceptance to use reading mediums.

Why and how does reading media matter? The scholarly monograph on reading inclination adds another exploration worldview to comprehend understudies' yearning, introduction and state of mind toward moving toward regular and computerized perusing styles. Understanding the genuine current inclination of understudies is a base before advocating the far reaching developments in the arrangement of perusing materials as there is an absence of exact proof to help the discussion that all youthful fit the advanced local portrayal of wide mechanical certainty, inclination and capability(Merga 2015). As far for digital reading, (Millar and Schrier 2015) reported that, digital reading is portable, flexible, accessible, convenient, interactive, instantly available, less expensive and cater to students learning styles. Despite the well-known of these technological suaveness, the preference for print reading over digital reading can be also justifies with reader’s sentiment, emotions and perceptions ; The time devoted to reading printed format is attributed to the classical act of reading that involves all the senses like looking at the text (vision), touch pages(touch), smell its ink (smell) and hear the sound as papers are turned or touch (sound), hence the print culture promotes a complete connection with the text a reader (Tryphonopoulos 2015).

A logical reason of why students diverged from digital reading was speculated by (Schaub 2016) who stated that, the illustrious reason is the ability to “build a physical map in reader’s mind of where things are. ” So that, readers are able to remember and locate information within pages and text layout that is in turn plays a key role in reading comprehension (Rosenwald 2015). The marvels of perusing inclination constitute a basic group of learning as it tends to how inclination reshapes reader’s conduct and can seep into perusing designs. Much examinations upheld such discovering like(Solak 2014)who contrasted perusing pace and two unique gatherings of understudies (7 understudies utilized paper-based perusing) and (7 understudies utilized online-based perusing). This finding is likewise observed with an examination led by(Kim and Kim 2013)with youngsters which announced that perusing from screens is 36% slower than perusing from paper.

Such speed is far more terrible than the discoveries of the past investigations; the researchers credited the moderate of perusing speed on computerized screens to the poor show characteristics of PC screens and maybe to a blend of visual, subjective, and enthusiastic factors. The possibility of perusing speed is changing as the examination setting uses perusing advancements that are to some degree more characteristic seeming like iBooks App and keep away from the poor show characteristics. For instance,(Sackstein, Spark et al. Perusing perception is the most basic measure in the present data based world that not just in the sense how psychological procedures are utilized as a part of a specific perusing test at the same time, to assess understudy's perusing execution with various perusing stages considering the progressions they have made that can influence their level of learning over the educational programs(Chen, Cheng et al.

Perusing appreciation is a questionable theme that has a broad verbal confrontation around the appropriateness of perusing media for perusing understanding. The prior relative examinations exhibited top to bottom perspectives to investigate issue of how perusing perception is re-conceptualized in an advanced domain(Nikolakopoulos and Paraskeva 2014). (Reynolds and Miller 2015) Giving a general panorama of past-to-present literature, the research on assessment of reading comprehension synthesizes findings that seem rather inconclusive and inconsistent. However, the overarching result in the literature confirmed that, reading from digital cut down comprehension. Those scholars declared that there were no differences across media when students were asked to identify the main idea of the text. Another study of a quasi-experimental design conducted by (Sackstein, Spark et al. 2015) targeted university and schools students.

The results of this study stated that, the comprehension scores did not differ significantly between the two reading medias (iPads vs. paper). The simplistic concept of reading comprehension, however, limits the acceptance of an outdated view of reading comprehension to a reader’s skill that is resulted from a sequential development of hierarchically ordered lower-level skills including phonological awareness, alphabetic understanding with a degree of fluency to develop an accurate and automatic reading skills to comprehend a text (Basaraba, Yovanoff et al. The underlying meaning of each sentence is not sufficient as a reader needs to integrate the meaning across sentences, and make use of relevant background knowledge to generate inferences, to further identify the text structure and finally understand authors’ goals and motives (Fiske, Kendeou et al.

Central to the concept of reading comprehension, studies affirmed the expansion of its components to examine the relation between these components and non-verbal factors (e. g. cognitive efficiency and working memory) considering other factors like reading experience and reading motivation (Bianco, Megherbi et al. Scholars have speculated that previous research on conceptualizing reading comprehension can appraise our understanding of comprehension at abstracted level; however, deep understanding of reading comprehension is acquired through deliberate and systematic view. At the core of this conception, the following sections illustrate the detailed conception of reading comprehension. Reading Comprehension Assessment Reading comprehension is a complex construct and is conventionally viewed as the end goal of reading (Lai, George Benjamin et al. Given the prominence of reading comprehension to academic attainment and the life-long success, researchers have put worthy effort into investigating the difference between digital reading comprehension and printed reading comprehension and assess how ready students are to read and interpret the very kinds of texts in these mediums.

It appears that whilst research on the reading comprehension, research on its effective assessment has indicated that reading comprehension assessment involves more than comprehension-check questions as in standardized testing (Oakley 2011). From experts view, the valid comprehension test can accomplish the objective of assessment measures the students’ ability in understanding the content of the text (Afriyanti and Barat 2016). The typography of the comprehension test is designed in a way the questions aren’t intended to be tricky or trivial. However, some questions are quite challenging and require careful thinking, accurate synopsis and logical conclusions (Khalid Khashoggi 2016). Having a general sense of how the reading test is constructed, the questions on the test are assorted, either all multiple-choice (Sackstein, Spark et al. 2015) or a combination of multiple-choice short-answer constructed response (CR) questions (Mangen, Walgermo et al.

Assessment Context By reviewing literature from a broad range of research sources, the research settings in which the assessment took place are instructional settings wherein data is collected within the participants’ academic setting like laboratories and classrooms to avoid exposure to the distraction. Throughout the literature, empirical research showed that the core base of reading comprehension assessment involves the interaction of reader, text, purpose, and context. Drawing on reading comprehension, the assessment of reading comprehension is rooted in linguistic and cognitive research that inevitably evolved over time, leading to number of different theories and models to depict reading as a process. One of the most so called and influential hybrid model is construction-integration(CI) model that describes all reading comprehension processes from decoding words to constructing coherent textual representation(Diesen 2014).

CI model combines a construction process in which a text base is constructed from the linguistic input as well as from the comprehender's knowledge base, with an integration phase in which this text based is integrated into a coherent whole(Willard 2013). However, this framework didn’t stimulate reading as psychological process in such experimental and longitudinal research allowing stronger causal inference. Gap in the Literature As many researchers viewed the polls and users’ reports on reading from modern screens as failed to recreate certain experiences of reading on paper which in turn inhibit reading comprehension (Jabr 2013). Such findings call us to critically highlight the research gaps of comparative studies in the existing in the literature. An extensive research is being carried out to understand, the impact of digital reading on reading comprehension with certain measures on psychology, education, information science fields, but little studies illuminated the matter from information technology perspectives that treat reading as human-technology interaction overlapped with psychology like preference factor that could influence the action of reading and comprehension.

Further criticisms are applied to most of the evidence on reading comprehension deficit because of lack in scientific rigor that minifies the value of many of these studies because of the flaws in experimental designs which threaten the validity of results and made it a challenging to generalize the results beyond the conditions of the particular study. CHAPTER 3: REASERCH METHODOLOGY 3. Chapter Overview Research methodology chapter discusses the way in which the research is undertaken based on a systematic approach comprised the theoretical analysis, and principles associated with a branch of knowledge on reading comprehension. The chapter covers the presentation of research design selection and justification, experiment design, research variables, measures and instrumentation, research sample, experimental apparatus and materials, experimental procedure, data collection, data analysis approaches, and research ethical considerations.

Research Framework Scientific knowledge on ‘reading comprehension assessment’ is gained based on observed and measured phenomena to afford an insight to epistemologically, methodologically, and analytically approach the research. This section aims to define a context in which reading comprehension will be assessed for academic setting and prove the relevancy of reading theories by working in a real-world context. In academic application, schema theory provides an ideal calculated system for adapting new material. An examination insisted that, "the previous diagram improves peruser's memory by impacting the harmony between movement inside the medial-temporary lobe (MTL) and he medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) amid mental helper forms including data encoding, combination, and recovery"(van Kesteren, Rijpkema et al. Perusing appreciation includes the association of different of subjective aptitudes and procedures.

From that point of view, perusing understanding procedures is a mind boggling collaboration of lower-level procedures like making an interpretation of the composed code into significant dialect units, and higher-arrange forms that include joining these units into an important and intelligible mental portrayal which relies upon reader's working memory, consideration distribution aptitudes and cognizance checking. (Kendeou, Papadopoulos et al. But how do media impact cognitive processes during reading task? Cognitive Load Theory is a basic for seeing how the utilization of various media can affect the demonstration of perusing regarding subjective and metacognitive procedures. (Oh 2013). Cognitive load is the viewed as how much the individual's functioning memory is occupied with preparing data(Watkins, Keller et al. To operationalize what adds to peruser's subjective load while perusing, researchers have proposed and tried distinctive psychological load influences.

For example, inherent load speaks to the heap forced on readers as a result of many-sided quality of the gained information while the incidental load speaks to the heap that forced on readers due the introduced outside factor such natural elements (e. The common concern of the sense of the embodiment interaction reflects how the meaning is created, manipulated and shared through the interaction with the artifact (Marshall and Hornecker 2013). In particular, this is often referred to the way we think with and through our bodies as the thoughts are based on bodily sensor motor experiences and sensor motor systems to make those thoughts dynamic. Such thoughts and behaviors are controlled by bodily and neural systems of perception, action, and emotion interacting with the physical environments (Glenberg 2015).

To entitle a comprehensive theoretical account of digital reading impact on reading process, the impact shouldn’t only account the different perceptual and cognitive processes involved in apprehending the reading content. However, the physical and bodily interaction with the reading devices would acknowledge the reader’s tactile hepatic interaction (Mangen and Schilhab 2012) since reading is considered as a multi-sensory activity, entailing perceptual, cognitive and motor interactions with whatever is being read (Campbell 2015). 2015)as it is the portal for data to stream to the mind(Greene 2014). The neuroscientists are as of now helping settle a few thoughts regarding how we read(Davis 2016). Perusing is a complex psychological process that requires phonological aptitudes, as well as memory capacities and consideration forms(Giovagnoli, Vicari et al.

2016)to build up an intelligent picture from the material experienced to develop a psychological portrayal of importance (Woods 2016). Giving a window into consideration movement amid perusing, consideration is entitled as a cerebrum work that assigns psychological preparing assets to center around data(Söderberg, Johansson et al. Unlike watching or listening to media, reading gives the brain more time to stop, think, process, and imagine which in turn increases mental activity to keep reader’s memory sharp (Trombetta 2017). According to the ongoing research, reading now as stated before, is a considered as human-technology interaction yielded workload (Lin and Shiau 2017). Workload is the estimation of human execution considering the level of trouble experienced when executing the assignment(Peters and Bertuccelli 2016). The urgent determinant of assignment load or work stack alludes to a mix of both physical and mental prerequisites that are related with an undertaking(Young-McLear, Wyman et al.

With perusing regard, perusing understanding includes the communication of different psychological abilities and procedures. However, the concept of reading speed is related to the perceptual span that captures the fixated words. Visual span limits the sensory input on each fixation to 3-4 characters to the left and 14-15 characters to the right of fixation (Jordan, Almabruk et al. 2014), In the perceptual span, the foveal area captures only the currently fixated word while a large proportion of the perceptual span falls into the parafoveal area. A reader can utilize parafoveal information in the perceptual span depends on attention and cognitive factors are closely related to text and task demands, as well as individual differences among readers (Leung, Sugiura et al. The perceptual span and reading speed has mostly been investigate in the context of reading acquisition.

Reading entails a human being with a body. Recent researches in reading and literacy turn the phenomena of embodied interaction during reading that light up the changing habits and processes of reading emerging with new technologies which indeed has important implications for the process of reading and comprehension. The embodied concept of reading manifests itself in various aspects that carries inevitably potential role on reading comprehension. As such, the concept of embodied reading acknowledged the embodied nature of reading and the role of the body in literacy practices expressed by the haptic or tactile interaction (Mangen and Weel 2016). Much thinking about haptic interaction has its root to in materiality and human sensory modalities. Furthermore, an element of anticipation to perception involves someone imagining what it would feel like to touch an object, grasp it with the hands, turn it over etc.

(Mangen 2016). Due to different sensor motor contingencies in screen substrates and the substrate of paper in how and to what extent they facilitate such hepatic interaction, A closer consideration of the tactile interactions with the digital platform, may begin to show how the ‘hepatic dissonance’ challenges reading process. Reading Preference Reading has an ancient history. Through this long covenant, reading books still has its own holiness. The aspiration for reading preference however, depicts why reader with printed reading preference perceived higher level of printed comprehension, while a significant negative correlation is found between electronic comprehension and printed preference (Aharony and Bar-Ilan 2015). To impose some sort of coherent view on whether digital media yields a comprehension deficit, A research model is mined through the conceptual framework focusing on of five major independent variables that reflect the basic anchors accounting how might digital reading influences reading comprehension.

Although, students (Gen Y) are technologically savvy, possess substantial confidence in technology, and able to adapt quickly to emerging technologies, there can be large variances on how to use such technology efficiently and effectively (Ramirez 2012). Based upon student reading preferences, the reading comprehension is varied. The reader’s choice between printed and digital formats can be expressed with the ecological model of human information behavior asserted that person's context influences every stage of the information-interaction behavioral process (Zhang and Kudva 2014). It further permits a researcher to have more control over participants’ treatment, organization of the treatment, control of assessment measures (Zuiderwijk and Janssen 2015). For the current research, reading comprehension assessment considers the degree to which the approach to reading varied as reader characteristics, the level of reader’s background knowledge (Akhondi and Aziz Malayeri 2012), reading interest and goals that make differences on how will students are able to understand the information in the text.

Thus, the research cultivates interest at each level for a balanced perspective on comprehension assessment to evolve. The design of the experiment is intended for observing readers rather than controlling the influences and consequences of human processes (Kyrö, Hägg et al. The initial research objectives questions sought to explore the following questions: 1. In the scoop of the theoretical review, the linkage between reading technology and reading comprehension is explored in terms of the medium of presentation (digital or printed) and the text genre (narrative informational) (Makhoul and Copti-Mshael 2015)(García and Cain 2014). Further evidence from cognitive psychologists depicted the effect of text complexity on reading comprehension (Vajjala, Meurers et al. Although, assessing textual complexity is considered a difficult task since it is associated with reader perceptions caused by the prior knowledge or cognitive capabilities (Dascalu, Dessus et al.

2013), the current research addresses text complexity by readability measures as these measures are widely used to evaluate such complexity (Grabar and Hamon 2016). Reading Comprehension is a multifaceted process that varies as reader characteristics; hence the current assessment considers the general consensus for the contribution of reader characteristics to reading comprehension. Reading speed is defined as the duration of reading a text with certain length (Wang, Zhao et al. It is the hallmark of normal reading acquisition that is calculated by dividing number of syllables read by the time taken by a reader to read them (Passolunghi, Caviola et al. Most people have the ability to read 600 wpm but the actual average speed is 200 wpm (Wardani 2015). Reading speed is measured in seconds and the measurements often obtained by a stopwatch apparatus, such tool had been used to this purpose by many studies to name few (Sackstein, Spark et al.

2015), (Altpeter, Marx et al. With reading respect, the perceived mental effort of cognitive load for reading task indicates the actual cognitive capacity allocated to accommodate the demand required by reading tasks. The task load is often measured by subjective assessment tools like NASA TLX that rates students perception about workload during task performance (Janjua 2016), (Hongler 2015). viewing the workload through the lenses of NASA TLX, the participants self-rate depicts the existence divers of workload captured from 6 factors: mental demand, physical demand, temporal demand, performance, effort, and frustration on a scale from 1 to 100 with steps in increments of 5 (Reuter and Camba 2017). Appendix 2 showed the NASA TLX assessment of the workload. Embodiment Interaction: During reading, the haptic interaction experienced with the text is tracked as the interactions are accompanied by the stimulation of the sensory modalities.

Medium preference matters because it often related to the overconfidence and the state of mind while be approaching the reading mediums (Embry 2017) conducive to adversely affect on reading comprehension. To provide an evidence-based knowledge on preference effect on reading comprehension, the interpretation of preference, however, denotes a latent tendency expressed by attitudes which can be typically measured through set of questions. Related to the measurement, a questionnaire (Appendix 4) is designed to assess whether the preference is a normative persuasion and behavior-change that lead to discrepancies in reading comprehension. Research Sample The intention of this research is to provide an insight into the students’ reading comprehension. Hence the research sample takes place in Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) targeted students. Participants had normal or corrected to normal vision.

Age (18-22). Exclusion Criteria 1. Participants with dyslexia or mental problems are excluded. Participants with body impairments limiting the use of reading technologies or materials are excluded. For realistic assessment, the concept of text readability measurement is utilized to calculate the complexity level of both texts of reading for both media. Text readability is defined as how easily documents can be read and understood, wherein text readability indexing (TRI) is the process of text classification according to their difficulty level defined by educational standards. (Razon and Barnden 2015). Readability measurement rubric is an important aspect for reading comprehension assessment since the level of readers’ comprehension is more affected by cohesive readability (Moladoost 2014). Text readability is a statistical measure that can be expressed through the application of readability formulas like Flesch-Kincaid readability formulas.

015\left({\frac {\text{total words}}{\text{total sentences}}}\right)-84. 6\left({\frac {\text{total syllables}}{\text{total words}}}\right)(Shapiro 2017). Table 3. 1: The Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease Chart Score Readability Level Education Level 0-29 Very Confusing College Graduates 30-49 Difficult College 50-59 Fairly Difficult High School Senior 60-69 Standard 13-15 Years Old 70-79 Fairly Easy 12 Years Old 80-89 Easy 11 Years Old 90-100 Very Easy 10 Years Old In this research text readability is measured by an online solution https://readable. io/text/, Accordingly, the score of reading ease of both reading text was between 30-49 which is an imperative to be understood by university students. A participant started reading material (silently and normally reading) as the stopwatch timer is started. The participant was given a limited time (15 minutes) to finish reading task although, the expected time for reading the passage was (11 minutes) according to the aforementioned study.

During the experiment, the researcher observed and noted participant behaviors. When the participant completed reading task, the stopwatch is stopped so that, the time spent on reading task is recorded for further analysis. Moreover, the reading material was collected before students starting comprehension task. Data Collection Ever the since the beginning of research, data collection is a crucial phase of a scientific research. The current research had been conducted through administrating an experiment with university students. Throughout the experimental phases, the obtained data includes a cursory glance of participant’s reading profile and the related variables of reading comprehension assessment. The view of most reading comprehension assessment revolved around these hermeneutic variables. First, the reading preference is a personal variable determines which reading mode is usually preferred by students.

Data Analysis The procedure of data analysis is an explorative in nature though, it is a central to make sense of gathered data within scientific disciplines. Data analysis procedure is of vital importance as it has a major influence on the results of each research conducted. How data analysis is done and how results are interpreted ought to be analogous to the used quasi experimental research methodology. To make inferential statistics and examine the significant differences between research variables and the sample groups of the population, the ‘Small Stata’ is utilized in this research as it is the most comprehensive software for panel data methodology. The process of data analysis starts with data screening to 1) clean up the data by detecting data normality, treating outlier and handling the missing data as stated by statistical rules.

Internal Validity: In any scientific research, the internal validity is concerned with the degree at which the researcher can make cause-and-effect claims about the independent and the dependent variable (Hopp 2015). It focuses on how well an experiment or a method is done without interference of any other confounding factor or bias (Sobh, Austin et al. Threats to internal validity yield confusion on the causal conclusion of the study. Threats like biases due to selection, measurement, and confounding (James 2017). The potential threats to internal validity in the context of the current study are avoided through random assignment of sampling units to experimental conditions. In the sense of research instrumentations, the Cronbach’s Alpha is used to measure the internal for set of scales or items surveys by correlating the score for each scale item with the total score for each participant survey respondents and compare these with the variance for all participants item scores (Goforth 2015).

The value of Cronbach’s alpha is 0. 7, suggesting to have relatively high internal consistency since this readability value is considered as an acceptable by according to the standard Likert scale (Andale 2017). The third analysis step is to conduct a Descriptive Analysis of Frequency Distribution tests. A frequency is the number of times a certain value of an observation occurs. Multiple Linear Regression is a powerful method of exploring relationships between a response Y and a set of potential explanatory variables (Kass, Eden et al. Thereby Multiple Linear Regression estimates the variation and predicts the value of reading comprehension score based on the values of the predictor variables (Chauke, Anim et al. The variation is calculated by the equation formula, Y = a + b1x1 + b2X2 + b3X3 + b4X4 + b5X5 + …… +e (Papilaya 2015).

Paired T-Test is the fifth test to be used to fulfill research objectives. Such test is the most basic form used for pair-wise comparison. The ethical considerations of the current study involve the following: 1. Following up Protocols While in academic institution, a permission to carry out the study was sought from Sultan Qaboos University. A detailed email of how study will be conducted was sent to instructors of in information systems department requesting for permission to conduct the study with their students, and to involve the students as informants to and to observe their behaviors was also sought. Consent Form The consent form is a “compact and carefully worded, and approved by an independent review board to lay out clearly the risks and benefits of participating in research” (Hayden 2012).

In the practice, the consent form is recommended to assure participant’s rights and record what has been agreed between the participants and the researcher (Porter 2012)Normally, the consent form is created: Appendix 5, printed, and it has to be signed and accepted as valid subsequently (Schwartze, Haarbrandt et al. Furthermore, the validity and reliability tests are used to measure the truthfulness of research instrumentations. The descriptive and inferential analysis was applied to study the relationship between the independent variables and the dependent variable to arrive at a consistent and meaningful conclusion. Data Preparation for Analysis 1. Data Screening Data screening is the process of inspecting data in terms of data sufficiency to ensure that, the data is useful and reliable for testing (Gran, Ismail et al.

As such an initial data screening is, therefore, crucial to be carried out prior to any data analysis to check the data for errors and fixing or removing these errors (Singh and Sharma 2016). Such interpretation considers that, a point beyond an inner fence on either side is considered a mild outlier. However, a point beyond an outer fence is considered an extreme outlier (Shein and Fitrianto 2017). Using STATA, the z-scores are used to detect outliers of all predictor and outcome variables are standardized to z-scores to detect outliers with absolute z-score values greater than 3(Engelhardt, Weladji et al. 2016) and further remove all rows that have outliers in at least one column. 3) Missing Data In statistics, missing data occurs when no data value is stored for the variable in an observation.

The Frequency command to populate frequency tables to exposure-related facts. From the data, the participants in this study were students at higher education level. The demographic characteristics of the participants is summarized in Table 4. 1to provide a deeper insight into a target sample of research. Table 4. 16% Level 3 90 50. 56% Level 4 18 10. 11% Level 5 12 6. 74% Eyesight Normal 117 65. 73% Corrected to Normal 61 34. 67% Data related to participants’ gender, showed that about, (45%) of total participants are male students while females are (55%). The participants are with the sampling age frame, (87%)ranged in an age from 18 to 22 but about (13%) are older than 22 years. For all other background characteristics, academic level is one of the most important characteristics that might affect the reading competency and therefore it becomes an imperative to know the educational background of the respondents.

The majority of the participants are in the 4th academic year (43. 26%) and 3rd academic year (35. 73%) are with normal sight while (34. 27%) are with corrected to normal sight. Among key criteria that study sought to be known are reading difficulties. The majority of respondents (88. 76%) have no difficulty in reading while the numbers of participants who face reading difficulties are (11. To provide a more comprehensive picture and a more accurate prediction of which reading mode do participants prefer and why, the following sections categorize participants according to their reading preference. 1) Printed Preference From the short review above, more than half of the participants preferred printed reading (55. Here we report on the specific statistics of this category. With the respect to gender, data were obtained showed that, about (61%) of females asseverate that printed reading is the most preferred mode of reading as compared to males (39.

In accordance with the participant’s age and academic years, the current data depicted that, participants who are in 3rd, 4th are having slightly difference in printed reading preference compared to digital reading preference (37. 2), third quarter of participants used printed martial’s as one's intention for study. Some participants’ reading has been a source of an entertainment (12%)or research (12%). Figure 4. 2: Reading Purpose Further insights drawn from the Table 4. 2 depicts what draw participants the most into reading from printed materials are their advantages of being healthier and comfort, improves learning and increases retention and eliminate distraction. 7 minutes, 10. 5 minutes respectively) on average. Attention is taking possession by the mind, in most clear and vivid form, however, readers who preferred reading from printed materials are having attentional focus in the term used to describe participants’ ability to control thoughts (17.

17%), prevent periodically distracting thoughts to focus on the text (55%) and slowing thoughts down to focus on one thing at a time (17. 17) to further attend relevant information during reading process. 7 out of 10). 2) Digital Preference There’s been a noticeable change of reading preference to digital mode (33%). The findings in the lines of digital preference revealed that, males are more attracted to digital reading (53. 33%) as compare to females (46. In accordance to age, results indicated that the absolute majority of participants aged between (18-22 years) chose digital reading from the provided reading modes. In creating a perceptual view where participant's attitudinal focus on new reading behaviors, the rest of the findings are contributing to an understanding in attitudinal change. Although it’s the most apparent that using smartphones is popular, there is a huge difference in such usage for reading on a desktop or laptop computer (45%)versus reading on standard tablet screen or small device like smartphones (25%), or dedicated e-book reader (5%).

The text formatting (PDF) is one of the most commonly format used by (90%) participants who preferred digital reading but few participants (6. 78) read plain text files. The perspectives of participants centered around reading purpose (Figure 4. 67%) of total participants were able to develop careful and sequential reading techniques. Figure 4. 5: Description of Digital Reading Behavior As depicted in earlier sections, the experiments conducted with a counterbalanced measures design. Concerning the experimental measures, participants were a bit faster (9. 2146 minutes) on reading from screen than printed (9. 67%, untrue: 13. As such, in a contrast with reading counterpart, the tangibility and the fixity of reading material does not influence the construction of the mental representation of the text physical layout (somewhat untrue: 36. 67%, untrue: 20%). As they denied the fact that, such interaction and tactile feedback during reading support the cognitive processing of the text (somewhat untrue: 11.

67%, untrue: 33. Table 4. 3: Attention Factor of Printed Reading Variable Factor1 Uniqueness 1 0. 6482 Table 4. 4: Attention Factor of Digital Reading Variable Factor1 Uniqueness 1 0. 6452 Table 4. 8: Reading Workload Factor of Digital Reading Variable Factor1 Uniqueness Mental Demand 0. 0473 Physical Demand 0. 0100 Temporal Demand 0. 0047 Frustration 0. 0457 Effort 0. 7407 which satisfies the criteria for factor analysis loading that states any loading of 0. 5 and above on a component is accepted (Rukaria, Mukulu et al. Reliability Analysis Data Reliability is the degree to which measures are free from error and therefore yield consistent results (Chong, Fung et al. It is the state that exists when data is sufficiently complete and be convincing for its purpose and context (Augustine 2015). Reliability analysis is used to measure the internal consistency across the various items in the instrument of the scales (Lee and Kim 2015) via Cronbach's α(Sasmita and Mohd Suki 2015) and further to determine if the sub-factors consist of homogeneous variables (Sasmita and Mohd Suki 2015).

Items Printed Reading Digital Reading Attention 0. 8073 5 Embodiment Interaction 0. 7790 3 Reading Workload 0. 8097 5 Further interpretation of the reliability analysis showed how closely related a set of items are as a group.  For instance, the initial scale of attention factor consisted of 5 items (Appendix 1). Such values are summative of 5 items (Performance dimension is deleted). Descriptive Analysis of Experimental Measures A holistic review of research measures is analyzed to provide basic information on the nature of each variable in this study by summarizing the observations to identify the frequency and mean values of each variable in different conditions. Reading Speed Table 4. 10: Reading Speed Description As seen in the table 4. 10, the mean of the reading speed recorded in the conventional reading group was (M=9. For instance, readers faced a bit less difficulties in controlling their thoughts while reading from the printed materials (14.

8%) as compared to the reading from digital materials (11. Furthermore, reading from printed materials improved reader’s focus(20. 7%) but reading from digital media is seemed to be very hard to maintain a strong focus while reading as (29. Although that, readers on both media made quite a bit effort when reading maintain focused thoughts (29. 976 respectively). But what contributes to reading workload was different. For example, with printed reading condition the temporal demand and effort had the highest means comparing to other constructs of workload (M=5. 3, M=5 respectively). However, participants reported higher mental and temporal demand when reading from digital formats (M=5. Dev. Min Max Printed 5. 96 0 10 Digital 5. 98 0 10 Although the reading is conducted with two different platforms, the results of comprehension tests are identical. As depicted in table 4.

11 illustrates the summary results of paired t tests. Table 4. 13: T-Tests Results Variable Printed Reading Digital Reading DF T P M SE SD 95% Conf M SE SD 95% Conf Reading Comprehension 5. 770 Reading Speed 9. 311 Reading Attention 2. The results were also identical with the reading speed measure, the t test indicated that the average time participants spent on both reading tasks was 9 minutes and the difference of means was little, hence the difference is not a statistically significant [t(151) = -1. 01, p > 0. In assessing whether reading from screen yields attention deficit, the paired t test explains the variability in the reader’s attention which confirms the participants experienced same attention shifts from task-related to task-unrelated thoughts(mind wandering)that tends to occur during reading tasks. Thus, the variability in the reader’s attention is not a statistically significant [t(175) = -1.

56, p > 0. In linear regression, the approach to modeling the relationship between two or more independent variables (X) and a single dependent variable (Y) by fitting a linear equation to the observed data(Al-Mudhafer and Gebrai 2014). Such relationship is expressed bya linear equation Y= x1 + x2 + …+xN. To depict how much the dependent variable (reading comprehension) changes with a change in independent variables (reading speed, reader’s attention, reading workload and embodiment interaction), the linear regression is usedto model the relationship between variables to further determine the strength of such variables as predictors of comprehension deficit and forecast their effect. Using STATA command regress, the changes of reading comprehension score is estimated when the independent variables (predictor) are changed. Table 4. In this model, the adjusted R2(0.

1903) indicating that, 19. 03% of the variation explained by only independent variables is actually affecting reading comprehension. In any statistical analysis, the goal is to understand how the variables and observations are lined. Such link is illustrated through (c) F value. To know how much variation there is in a set of measurements and how far apart the individual values are from the mean may give some insight into how fit the observations or values are to the regression model that is created. The interpretation of SS of the model indicated that, the model explained 16. 4of total variation of reading comprehension(73. However, the SS of residual (57. 3319558) suggested that, the variation of reading comprehension is going unexplained. 164) holding all other variables constant. Another negative coefficient was apparent with reader’s attention as depicted in the table them.

Its negative coefficient indicated that, for every additional degree of mind wandering, the expected reading comprehension score decreases by (-. 136) holding all other variables constant. However, the predictor of attention is not a significant in this model. Regression with moderation, or interaction, shows how the strength of the relationship between two variables is affected by a moderator (van Kollenburg and Croon 2017). For this model, the preference of a reader is variable assumed to affect the direction and/or strength of the relation between an independent or predictors and a criterion variable (reading comprehension). With digital preference, the interaction term between reading speed and digital reading preference was entered, and it explained a positive significant correlation with reading comprehension, b =. 429, t(3. 32), p=0.

Further significant proportion of the variance on reading comprehension is accounted for the role of haptic interaction. The moderation with digital preference yielded a significant correlation between role haptic interaction and reading comprehension but not significant with the moderation with printed preference. Chapter Summary This chapter represented the best thinking of the product of data analytic process to answer the research questions being posed by this study. It summarized the collected data and the statistical treatment and the techniques of analysis. Prior to data analysis, data preparation is perhaps the most important step in any type of serious data analysis. It incorporates precise and crisp informative, relevant, and comprehensive information about the utmost significance included in the thesis and presents a vivid understanding of the research analysis.

Furthermore, and as part of a reflection on research findings, this chapter foregrounds the study’s implications for practice, and some of the directions for future research that expands new insights of thinking for the research problem. Finally, a closure statement of the current thesis draws out a final conclusion. Insight into Participants’ Reading Preference The study sought to determine the participants’ reading preference for a broader understanding of its influence on reading comprehension. Before dive deeper into preference influence, participants’ characteristics are highlighted to investigate how such characteristics alter reader’s behavior and change the outcome. The generalization of much published researches on digital reading provided plausible explanations on the emerged behaviors and how such behaviors take away from serious and immersion reading so the formation of deep-reading processes is likely to be difficult(Chen and Chen 2014).

Yet, the earlier researches didn’t draw an attention to frequent screen-based reading and the related behaviors in terms of quantity and frequency that constitute an intersection between reading attitudes and engagement with reading materials. The repeated reading practices is likely to gradually develop the screen-based reading behavior, and to increasingly use a variety of reading strategies like browsing, key-word spotting etc. to cope with the information-abundant environment(Attwood 2015). The specific action of specific reading preference can advance our understanding of an enduring attitude-behavior relation and demonstrate the importance of attitudes as determinants of behavior. 2017), knowledge of cognitive and metacognitive strategies(Schaffner and Schiefele 2013), reader’s reasoning abilities(Oh 2013), a reader’s sense of self-efficacy and reading motivation (Kargar and Zamanian 2014).

However, the assessment of reading comprehension goes beyond lexical knowledge and phonemic awareness skills. The higher—order thinking processes of information interpretation requires an assessment on the exact interaction between the reader, text, context and reading media. Although the connection between these elements is definite, the interaction is one of the central differences exists with digital reading media that would affect readers’ comprehension processes. Referring to research methodology chapter, an integrative framework highlighted the ongoing factors discussed in such research agenda to identify knowledge gaps. Such interpretation may relate to the close relation between visual and mental processes that yields reader’s ability to construct a mental representation of the text being read as seen with readers who prefer printed reading mode.

As reading onscreen promotes fast reading, successful reading requires more than recognizing a sequence of individual words and requires understanding the relationships among them and making inferences since the mental operations responsible for assembling viewed words into meaningful ideas and retaining them in memory cannot be completed if adequate time is not provided(Rayner, Schotter et al. 2016) and speeding up reading is not always associated to comprehension deficit since fast readers tend to demonstrate a high level of comprehension (Dyson and Haselgrove 2001). However, readers who used to read onscreen maintain a natural reading speed adequate to information processing more efficiently than those who prefer printed reading. Such reading patterns relies on making a series of saccadic eye movements along with brief fixation pauses during reading in which the eye is relatively stationary and visual information is acquired from the text(Paterson, McGowan et al.

In the context of reading, however, the possible interference of task-unrelated thoughts cannot be ruled out. As reading consists of different component processes, and simultaneous resources to be allocated, discourse comprehension disaffected by general thoughts that arises spontaneously and yielded a complex cognitive control that is required for text comprehension. Efficient reading requires sustainable attention control, though participants reported drifting off to thoughts unrelated to task during reading process. As a result, readers are devoting potentially large portion of mental resources to task irrelevant processing and such devoting is at the expense of the target reading task. Despite reading media,  a higher level of attention improves reading comprehension, such result matched those observed in earlier studies (Moss, Schunn et al. Embodiment interaction: In-depth observational study spans a variety perspective of interaction during reading process.

The central idea of reading as embodied emphasizes the role of embodiment in conceptual processing and shifts the embodied interaction to a sort of materiality interaction. The concept of embodiment is deeply rooted in language comprehension but there is a cast doubt on embodiment being always necessary to language comprehension. In current study context, action-based comprehension arises from physical manipulation of reading materials. As depicted in regression model, the embodiment interaction with between reader and reading material substrate had an effect on how a reader is engaged in the ongoing reading process. Perception and preference had conclusively been shown to improve reading comprehension by (Seok and DaCosta 2016), and (Aharony and Bar-Ilan 2015). Knowledge of reading preference is not just as a matter of what end one prefers but also what constructs preference in larger propensity dynamics bearing on a central question about what impacts reading comprehension.

Just as various concepts operate at different levels on comprehension assessment, reading preference is linked to heightened levels of diagnostic performance on reading as depicted in Figure 5. Figure 5. 1: Reading Preference Moderates Comprehension Result 5. A great deal of research on reading comprehension has focused on how digital reading promotes slow and arduous reading process. It could be argued that, reading from screens is significantly slower than reading from paper. The results of this study showed that, there is no significant difference in reading from screens and printed materials. In contrast to earlier findings, however observed a significant difference in amount of time spent on digital reading (Aberšek and Aberšek 2013), (Porion, Aparicio et al. Our contradictory result may be due to the vision span or perceptual span within which the reader’s eye has sharp enough vision to read the text both vertical and horizontal angular spans.

A common view amongst the participants didn’t emphasize the roles of haptic interaction in apprehending the content. As such, the tangibility and the fixity of reading material do not influence the construction of the mental representation of the text physical layout and hence cognitive processing. It is not the haptic interaction that influences reading comprehension, rather logical justification could signify the reader’s cognitive abilities in comprehension process. Such ability supports the construction of cognitive maps and spatial cues to reflects the physical structure of the text (Hou, Rashid et al. 2017)to enhances information encoding and comprehension. The research into the implication of screens reading frequency is still in the early stages, but the current evidence indicates that frequency use of certain reading devices and technologies with a specific reading format such as PDF creates the transformation experience with harmony of natural reading.

Subsequently, Participant’s reading behaviors are changed by experience and have some corresponding change in the functions of text comprehension. Moreover, such preference is more closely aligned with reading purpose (e. g. study and research purposes) and the inducement to use so (e. As a guide on recording factors identified at the end of the assessment, this study proposes an assessment model to guide researcher to study what impacts reading comprehension thinking of reading as linguistic, psychological, and physiological processes work simultaneously affected by reading context, reading task, text and reader characteristics and skills. Research Implication The pace of change in the digital reading landscape is enough to make anyone access vast information in a swift manner. The digital landscape is ever-shifting the way we read as number of researchers had sought to explore how such digital technologies change reading process and outcome.

Although, wide array of statistical measurement methods is available to support such kinds of inferences, the findings of this study revealed the insignificant impact of digital reading technologies on reading comprehension. The nuanced and procession considerations of the assessment can defeat the broader concerns raised on the influence of such technologies on reading comprehension. Growing up with such dedication, creates a magnitude of enhancement on reader’s ability to cope with boarder range of reading activities that can include both prowling and deep reading. Yet, digital reading comprehension can be affected by set of factors (reading speed, reader’s attention, reading workload, embodiment interaction and reading preference) reflected the actual interaction between the reader, text, and the media. The variance in the reading comprehension however, is not attributed to reading technologies themselves, rather reader’s behaviors, perception towards using reading technology and media and the variability in reader’s capacity for processing information, could be the casual superior of comprehension deficit.