Reading from Screen Vs Reading from Paper: Does It Really Matter?

ABSTRACT

This study investigated whether reading comprehension would differ when the texts are studied and tested on screen or on paper. Participants were 69 college students who were attending a college in midwestern United States. Participants read two expository texts each, under comparable paper and screen conditions and answered comprehension questions. Test forms and the order of the conditions were counterbalanced. The correlations between reading outcomes and reader characteristics were examined. Participants also completed a survey on their views on the two media (paper or screen). The results did not indicate a significant difference on students’ reading comprehension as a function of medium and reader characteristics. However, students reported preferring paper-based reading for complex material.

KEYWORDS:

• Computers
• reading comprehension
• screen reading
• hard copy reading

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Funding for this study was obtained through University of Minnesota Duluth Psychology Department Internal Grant and it was used solely to provide participants with gift cards.

Notes on contributors

Turkan Ocal

Turkan Ocalcurrently serves as Assistant Professor of Psychology at Peru State College. She earned her doctoral degree in educational psychology in 2015 from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Between 2015 to 2019, she served as Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Minnesota Duluth. She conducts research on acquisition and development of literacy skills.

Aydin Durgunoglu

Aydin Durgunoglu is a Distinguished Global Professor (emeritus) at the University of Minnesota Duluth. As a cognitive psychologist her research areas are literacy development, bilingualism, and knowledge acquisition.

Lauren Twite

Lauren Twite graduated with departmental honors and summa cum laude from the University of Minnesota Duluth in 2019 with a Bachelor of Applied Science in psychology. Since graduation she has worked in the fields of applied behavior analysis and social work.