Comparing reading and understanding levels of junior high school student who read electronic texts with the level of those who read printed texts

Abstract

An experimental posttest-only control-group design was used to assess the influence of electronic text on the reading comprehension of junior high school students of Akosombo Volta River Authority Junior High School No. 1. A convenience sample of 140 randomly assigned students was used for this research. Half of the students used passages from text read on screens while the other half used traditional print text passages. Data was collected during one class period in which the reading comprehension section of the ReadTheory Reading Test was administered. An independent t-test was used to analyze the reading comprehension data. The influence of electronic text on the reading motivation of junior high school students was examined using a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest control-group design. All participants took the initial Motivations for Reading Questionnaire, on the next day. A posttest MRQ was administered in which 27 participants completed the MRQ after reading a printed text passage, and 27 participants completed the MRQ after reading the same passage in electronic form. Reading motivation data was analyzed using a MANOVA. Results established no significant differences in either reading comprehension or motivation levels based on printed text format. It was recommended that additional research questions regarding the use of adjustments to readability features of electronic text, and data could be collected by inserting researcher-created questions at the end of the research instrument. Additionally, this study could be furthered by having the paper test administrators’ record finishing times for a statistical comparison of the two groups.