Does It Really Matter? Reading From Screen Versus Reading From Paper

• In Event: AERA Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: Computer and Internet Applications in Education

Abstract

Currently college students are often required to read text and take tests on screen. There has been many studies conducted on the issue of whether reading on screen would affect students’ comprehension levels. We further examined the issue by creating a unique design. Unlike majority of previous studies, we examined students’ experiences of reading a text and taking a test on screen as opposed in hard-copy in a repeated measures design. The results of our study were interesting as students performed similarly in reading comprehension tests and reported similar levels of stress and fatigue whether they took the test on screen or in paper despite taking longer in paper then on screen to read and answer questions.

Authors

• Turkan Ocal, Peru State College

• Aydin Durgunoglu, University of Minnesota - Duluth

• Lauren Twite, University of Minnesota - Duluth