What fascinated me the most, and thus what I am excerpting from, is the that the very act of scrolling through a text lowers reading comprehension.
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If one looks strictly at just the strategies a student uses when reading on a screen versus reading on paper, the study “On-Screen Versus On-Paper Reading: Students’ Strategy Usage and Preferences” examines the reading fundamentals students use. In a questionnaire to 237 undergraduates studying at an Eastern mid-size university in reading intensive classes, it determined that students use beginning reading strategies “slightly more on paper than on screen” (Hamer & McGrath, 2011). When studying for an exam, students reread notes taken while reading or even their entire assignment more frequently when it is on paper. For anything longer than five pages, the participants indicated that 71.7% preferred to read on paper than on screens. Similarly, 71.3% were more easily distracted while on a screen. Seniors, in particular, noted in open-ended questions that they recognized the ability to “highlight, circle, or take notes on the text” aided with their reading comprehension.
Whereas it is not be more difficult to read from a screen be it an e-reader or a tablet as compared to a printed page in terms of reading speed, brain activity, or eye movement (Kretzschmar et al, 2013), students who read off a paper in print as compared to a PDF on a computer screen score significantly higher than those who read texts digitally as shown in the Norwegian study “Reading Linear Texts on Paper Versus Computer Screen: Effects on Reading Comprehension” (Mangen, Walgermo, & Bronnick, 2013). Even with time pressured reading, readers who read on the printed page generally get better results than those who read off of a screen (Ackerman & Lauterman, 2012).
This deficit in reading comprehension from a screen may be affected by scrolling through a text. In “To Scroll or Not to Scroll: Scrolling, Working Memory Capacity, and Comprehending Complex Texts,” Sanchez and Wiley (2009) discovered through two experiments that scrolling on a screen negatively affected learning from a text, especially for those who have they had identified with lower working memory. The ability to remember subheadings and to think about where the information would be on a page, whether it was on paper or on a paginated screen, increased the participants understanding of the text as compared to all the information on a single scrollable screen. Scrolling through text affected the participants’ understanding of what they had read.
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Below is her bibliography.
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Ackerman, R. & Lauterman, T. (2012). Taking reading comprehension exams on screen or on paper? A metacognitive analysis of learning texts under time pressure. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(5): 1816–1828, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.04.023
Babayiğit, O. (2019). Examination the metacognitive reading strategies of secondary school sixth grade students. International journal of progressive education, 15(3).
Baker, W., Lusk, E., & Neuhauser, K. (2012, Sep/Oct). On the use of cell phones and other electronic devices in the classroom: Evidence from a survey of faculty and student. Journal of Education for Business, 87(5), 275-289. doi: 10.1080/09932323.2011.622814
Bouygues, H.L. (2019, June). Does educational technology help students learn?: An analysis of the connection between digital devices and learning. reboot elevating critical thinking. Retrieved from https://reboot-foundation.org/wp-content/uploads/_docs/ED_TECH_ANALYSIS.pdf
End, C., Worthman, S., Mathews, M. B., & Wetterau, K. (2010). Costly cell phones: The impact of cell phone rings on academic performance. Teaching of Psychology, 37(1), 55-57. doi: 10.1080/009862809003425912
Eriksson, M., Vugjarvi, H., & Ruokamo, H. (2009). Laptop computers and wireless university campus networks: Is flexibility and effectiveness improved? Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 25(3), 322-335.
Hamer, A. B, & McGrath, J. L. (2011, Fall). On-screen versus on-paper reading: Students' strategy usage and preferences. NADE Digest, 5 (3). Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=EJ1097588
Jacobs, T. (2019, June). Computers in the classroom may do more harm than good – If they’re overused. Pacific Standard.
Kretzschmar, F, Pleimling, D, Hosemann, J, Füssel, S, Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I and Schlesewsky, M (2013). Subjective impressions do not mirror online reading effort: Concurrent EEG-eyetracking evidence from the reading of books and digital media. PLOS ONE 8(2). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0056178
Kulesza, J., DeHondt, G., & Nezlek, G., (2011, December). More technology, less learning? Information Systems Education Journal, 9(7), 4-13.
Lopez-Perez, V.A., Ramierez-Correa, P.E., & Grandon, E.E. (2019). Innovativeness and factors that affect the information technology adoption in the classroom by primary teachers in Chile. Informatics in Education, 18(1), 165-181. doi:10.15388/infedu.2019.08
Mangen, A., Walgermo, B.R., & Bronnick, K. (2013). Reading linear texts on paper versus computer screen: Effects on reading comprehension. International Journal of Educational Research, 58, 61-68. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2012.12.002
Myrberg, C., & Wiberg, N., (2015). Screen vs. paper: What is the difference for reading and learning? Insights: The UKSG Journal, 28(2), 49-54. DOI: http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.236
Neiterman, E. & Zaza, C. (2019). A mixed blessing? Students' and instructors' perspectives about off-task technology use in the academic classroom. The Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 10(1). Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.5206/cjsotl-rcacea.2019.1.8002
Nworie, J. & Haughton, N. (2008, September/October). Good intentions and unanticipated effects: The unintended consequences of the application of technology in teaching and learning environments. TechTrends, 52(5), 52-58.
Sanchez, C. A., & Wiley, J., (2009, October). To scroll or not to scroll: scrolling, working memory capacity, and comprehending complex texts. Human Factors, 51(5), 730-738.
