The Russian schoolchildren's digital reading: Factors affecting medium preferences and self-evaluation of digital reading practice

Introduction. While the importance of digital reading in modern education is constantly increasing, there are some knowledge gaps in investigating reading patterns (reading digital and print texts). There is still little scientific understanding of how Russian schoolchildren choose the medium of reading and how children assess their reading behavior in the digital environment. The purpose of the article is to reveal the factors that influence Russian schoolchildren’s choice of a reading medium, as well as the features of their self-evaluation of digital reading practices. Materials and Methods. To achieve the goal of the study we used the following methods: a questionnaire, statistical data processing, including t-test, correlation analysis using Spearman's rank correlation coefficient (rs) for ordinal variables and Pearson's coefficient (rp) for quantitative variables, comparative analysis based on the Mann-Whitney rank test for nonparametric data and ordinal scales, ANOVA. Results. During the research a questionnaire consisting of three blocks of questions was developed, tested and distributed among the target audience. 568 students of grades 5-11 from 54 regions of the Russian Federation took part in the survey. Correlation analysis of the data made it possible to reveal some factors which influence the Russian schoolchildren’s choice of the reading medium - digital or printed. Furthermore, the authors identified the features of schoolchildren’s subjective perception of digital reading and the factors determining this perception. Conclusions. The study identified factors which significantly affect the Russian children’s preference to read digitally: the type of text, the purpose of reading, the respondents’ age, their attitude to reading and the level of reading proficiency (according to self-report data). Children’s self-evaluation of digital reading showed that they identify both negative (increased fatigue, decreased interest in reading, etc.) and positive aspects of reading digital texts (efficiency of search reading). Keywords Reading; Digital reading; Reading medium; Preferences of reading medium; Reading self-evaluation; Reading practice; Russian schoolchildren