Children's reading comprehension and metacomprehension on screen versus on paper

Highlights

• Reading on screen impaired children's comprehension compared to reading on paper.

• Their metacomprehension judgments suggested that they were unaware of this effect.

• Children had no clear a-priori preference for reading on paper versus on screen.

• They were insensitive to the effect of medium even after experiencing it.

• The effect of medium was unrelated to preferences, computer usage or reading skills.

Abstract

On-screen reading is becoming increasingly prevalent in educational settings, and children are now are expected to comprehend texts that they read on screens. However, research suggests that reading on screen impairs comprehension compared to reading on paper. Furthermore, this medium effect is not reflected in adults' metacomprehension judgments, which often reflect greater overconfidence when reading on screen. Adults are therefore usually metacognitively unaware of the detrimental effect that on-screen reading has on their comprehension. Whether and how the medium affects children's metacomprehension has not been examined before. The main purpose of the present study was to examine the effect of the medium used for reading (screen vs. paper) on children's reading comprehension and metacomprehension. Fifth grade children (N = 38) read short texts, estimated their comprehension of each text, and answered a reading comprehension test. They completed this task on paper for two texts and on screen for two other texts. Results suggested that the children's reading comprehension was better when reading on paper than on screen, although initial reading time was equivalent. This paper advantage was independent of medium preferences, computer usage habits, or reading skills. Children's metacomprehension judgments were insensitive to the effect of medium, and their medium preferences further suggested that they were indifferent to the medium used for reading, both before and after experiencing the task on both media. These results suggest that children, like adults, are metacognitively unaware of the detrimental effect that on-screen reading has on their comprehension, and they are likely to make ineffective medium choices for their reading tasks.

Introduction

Technological advancements in recent decades have brought computers into almost every aspect of our lives, and reading is no exception. Whereas traditionally reading was done predominantly on paper, on-screen reading has become increasingly prevalent, and electronic textbooks are gradually replacing printed ones (Barron, 2011; Picton, 2014). The recent inclusion of electronic assessments of reading comprehension as part of international assessments of reading skills (PIRLS, the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, Mullis, Martin, Foy, & Hooper, 2017; PISA, the Programme for International Student Assessment, OECD, 2015) suggests that children are now expected to read and comprehend texts that are presented on screens.

Given the gradual shift to on-screen reading in education, it is essential to understand whether and how this shift affects reading comprehension. Theoretical models of reading comprehension have traditionally focused on the characteristics of the reader, the text, and the task in explaining reading comprehension (RAND Reading Study Group, 2002). In recent years, however, research suggests that reading comprehension is also affected by characteristics of text display, such as font size and type, that are unrelated to the reader, the text, or the task (e.g., Diemand-Yauman, Oppenheimer, & Vaughan, 2011; French et al., 2013; Katzir, Hershko, & Halamish, 2013; Pieger, Mengelkamp, & Bannert, 2016). It is therefore critical to examine whether the medium used for displaying the text (paper vs. screen) also plays a role in reading comprehension.

A highly related question is whether the medium used for reading affects metacomprehension. Metacomprehension is one aspect of metacognition that refers to the readers' judgments about how well they have comprehended text materials (Dunlosky & Lipko, 2007; Thomas & Mcdaniel, 2007; Wiley et al., 2016; Wiley, Griffin, & Thiede, 2005). Readers decide how much time and cognitive resources to invest in processing a text according to their judgment of comprehension. Therefore, when metacomprehension judgments are accurate, self-regulation of reading is usually effective, which contributes to reading comprehension (Dunlosky, Hertzog, Kennedy, & Thiede, 2005; Thiede, Anderson, & Therriault, 2003). Unfortunately, metacomprehension is often inaccurate. Learners, especially low ability ones, tend to overestimate their comprehension (e.g., Clinton, 2019; Hacker, Bol, Horgan, & Rakow, 2000; Maki, Shields, Wheeler, & Zacchilli, 2005; Thiede, Griffin, Wiley, & Anderson, 2010). Given the critical role of metacomprehension in reading, it is important to examine how it is affected by the medium used for reading.

The goal of the current research was to examine the effect of the medium used for reading (screen vs. paper) on both reading comprehension and metacomprehension, while focusing on a relatively unexplored age group in this respect—elementary school children.

Despite the extensive use of electronic devices, most adults still prefer to read texts on paper rather than on screen, especially for learning purposes (Ackerman & Goldsmith, 2011; Baron, Calixte, & Havewala, 2017; Kurata, Ishita, Miyata, & Minami, 2017; Mizrachi, 2015; Spencer, 2006; Woody, Daniel, & Baker, 2010; but see; Singer & Alexander, 2017). Is this preference justified? That is, do they benefit when reading on paper vs. on screen?

A growing body of research has examined the effect of the medium used for reading on adults' performance on reading assessment tests and on metacognition. A prominent finding is a benefit of on-paper reading over on-screen reading, both for test performance and for metacognition (e.g., Ackerman & Goldsmith, 2011; Ackerman & Lauterman, 2012; Sidi, Shpigelman, Zalmanov, & Ackerman, 2017; Singer, Trakhman, Alexander, & Berkowitz, 2019). In a prominent study, Ackerman and Goldsmith (2011, Experiment 2) observed that when participants were able to self-pace their reading, those who read texts on paper outperformed those who read the texts on screen on a multiple-choice test. After reading the texts but prior to taking the test, participants were asked to predict their test performance. The medium had no effect on these predictions, suggesting that readers do not appreciate the benefits of on-paper reading. Further, those predictions reflected greater overconfidence when reading on screen than when reading on paper.

Several other studies observed no effect of medium on performance or a benefit of on-screen reading (e.g., Chen & Catrambone, 2015; Daniel & Woody, 2013; Margolin, Driscoll, Toland, & Kegler, 2013; Norman & Furnes, 2016; Singer & Alexander, 2017). Importantly, however, three recent meta-analyses yielded a test performance advantage for on-paper over on-screen reading when pooling the different studies together (Clinton, 2019; Delgado, Vargas, Ackerman, & Salmerón, 2018; Kong, Seo, & Zhai, 2018) despite no difference in self-paced reading time (Clinton, 2019; Kong et al., 2018). The mixed nature of the original findings nevertheless calls for a more scrutinized examination of factors that might moderate the effect of medium. For example, the advantage of on-paper over on-screen reading was found to be greater for expository texts than for narrative texts (Clinton, 2019; Delgado et al., 2018) and when reading time was constrained rather than self-paced (Delgado et al., 2018).

The meta-analysis by Clinton (2019) also examined the effect of medium on metacognition and concluded that metacognitive assessments are more accurate when reading on paper than when reading on screen. Inaccurate metacognitive assessment is likely to yield ineffective self-regulation of cognitive effort, which could explain the inferior performance on screen compared with on paper. Indeed, research suggests that readers tend to process information more deeply on paper than on screen (Annisette & Lafreniere, 2017; Lauterman & Ackerman, 2014; Sidi et al., 2017).

A potential moderator for the effect of medium on performance is the reader's age. Children nowadays are growing up surrounded by digital technologies and spend a lot of time in front of screens (Childwise, 2017). Whereas adults usually report they prefer to read from print, preliminary findings suggest that children report a preference for on-screen reading (Dahan Golan, Barzillai, & Katzir, 2018; Huang, Liang, Su, & Chen, 2012). On-screen reading might therefore have different effects on children and adults. One view suggests that, given their early experience with technology, children are expected to achieve equivalent, or even better, comprehension levels on screen than on paper (Chen, Cheng, Chang, Zheng, & Huang, 2014; Delgado et al., 2018). Another view, in contrast, argues that children's experience with technology might encourage them to adopt speeded and shallower processing on screen (Duncan, McGeown, Griffiths, Stothard, & Dobai, 2016; Pfost, Dörfler, & Artelt, 2013), which would impair their reading comprehension.

Most of the studies that have examined the effect of medium on reading comprehension were conducted on adults. Research on children, especially elementary school children, has been much scarcer. Like the research on adults, research on children has yielded mixed results. Some studies observed better reading comprehension among children on paper than on screen (Dahan Golan et al., 2018; Eyre, Berg, Mazengarb, & Lawes, 2017; Jeong, 2012; Kerr & Symons, 2006; Lenhard, Schroeders, & Lenhard, 2017), whereas other studies yielded no effect of medium (Grimshaw, Dungworth, McKnight, & Morris, 2007; Porion, Aparicio, Megalakaki, Robert, & Baccino, 2016; for meta-analyses, see; Kingston, 2008; Wang, Jiao, Young, Brooks, & Olson, 2008) or better reading comprehension on screen than on paper (McCrea-Andrews, 2014). The recent meta-analyses that examined the effect of medium on reading comprehension found that age group (adults vs. children) did not moderate the effect (Clinton, 2019; Delgado et al., 2018). This finding should be considered with caution given the relatively small number of studies on children that were included in these meta-analyses, yet it preliminarily suggests that children, like adults, tend to comprehend texts better on paper than on screen. In a recent study by Dahan Golan et al. (2018), for example, fifth and sixth graders read texts and took a reading comprehension test either on paper or on screen. The results revealed that they comprehended texts better when they read on paper than when they read on screen, although the majority of children preferred to read on screen. Dahan Golan and colleagues also examined whether medium affects a specific aspect of children's metacognition, namely their confidence level in the answers they provide on the test. After answering each test question, children were asked to rate how confident they were that the answer they provided was correct. These confidence ratings were slightly higher on paper than on screen and, when compared to actual test performance, were less accurate (i.e., less calibrated) on screen than on paper. This finding suggests that medium affects children's metacognition beyond its effect on their reading comprehension.

Critically, the effect of reading medium on children's metacomprehension (i.e., self-assessment of reading comprehension after reading the text but prior to taking the comprehension test) has not been previously explored (Clinton, 2019). Given the critical role of metacomprehension for children's self-regulation of reading (de Bruin, Thiede, Camp, & Redford, 2011), the central aim of the current research was to fill this gap.

Another important question is whether there are any predictable individual differences regarding the effect of medium on children's reading comprehension. It might be, for example, that children who prefer reading on screen to reading on paper, who use computers intensively, or who have strong reading and comprehension skills would be less affected, or not affected, by the medium used for reading than children who prefer reading on paper, who use computers less often, or who have poor reading and comprehension skills. The relatively small body of research about medium effects on children's reading comprehension does not yet provide a clear answer to these questions.

The present study was designed to examine the effect of the medium used for reading (screen vs. paper) on children's reading comprehension and metacomprehension and to further assess whether this effect is related to children's medium preferences, computer usage habits, and reading skills. In the study, fifth grade children read short texts, estimated their comprehension of each text (i.e., metacomprehension judgment), and answered a reading comprehension test. This task was completed on paper for two texts and on screen for two other texts (within-participants). Medium preference before and after the task, computer usage habits, and reading skills were also assessed.

This design enabled us to examine the following research questions:

• Question 1: Does the medium used for reading (screen vs. paper) affect children's reading comprehension? Recent evidence suggests that children comprehend texts better on paper than on screen (Dahan Golan et al., 2018), and we expected to replicate this finding. Since medium effects might depend on the technical parameters that are used for text display, a non-direct replication is important for the sake of generalization. An attempt was made in the present study to use ecologically valid technical parameters for text display. Specifically, whereas Dahan Golan et al. presented the texts in the screen condition in a relatively large (15 point) font size, on a relatively small (15 inch) screen of a laptop computer, and in a relatively artificial manner (i.e., the screen included only the text with no buttons or any other distractions), in the present study the texts were presented using a standard (13 point) font size for this age group, on a larger (19 inch) screen of a desktop computer, and in a more ecologically valid manner (i.e., the screen also included buttons and other features that are likely to be present when reading on screen in natural settings).

• Question 2: Does the medium used for reading (screen vs. paper) affect children's metacomprehension judgments? In other words, are children metacognitively sensitive to the effect of medium on their reading comprehension? This is a novel question that has not been examined before with children. Since adults' metacognitive judgments were found to be insensitive to medium effects (Ackerman & Goldsmith, 2011; Clinton, 2019), we predicted the same would be true for children.

• Question 3: Do children prefer reading on paper or on screen, and does this preference change after completing a reading and comprehension task on both media? In other words, do children gain awareness to the effect of medium on their performance with experience? One recent study (Dahan Golan et al., 2018) examined this question and suggested that children prefer to read on screen but that this preference is attenuated after experiencing a reading and comprehension task on both media, and we expected to replicate these findings.

• The next three questions concern individual differences in medium effects. This issue has not been investigated before. We therefore had no clear predictions and preliminarily examined these questions on an exploratory basis.

• Question 4: Does the effect of medium on reading comprehension and metacomprehension depend on children's preferred medium for reading? To the extent that children's medium preferences rely on their past experience with on-screen (vs. on-paper) reading, the medium might differentially affect children who prefer reading on paper and those who prefer reading on screen (cf. Lauterman & Ackerman, 2014).

• Question 5: Is the effect of medium on reading comprehension and metacomprehension related to children's computer usage habits? As suggested above (section 1.2), there are reasons to believe that higher computer usage could reduce the predicted detrimental effect of on-screen reading, but there are also reasons to believe it could enhance it.

• Question 6: Is the effect of medium on reading comprehension and metacomprehension related to children's reading skills? Since on-screen reading was found to be related to shallower processing (e.g., Lauterman & Ackerman, 2014), it might have a more detrimental effect on children with less developed reading skills. Since on-screen reading was found to have detrimental effects on adults as well, however, it is equally likely to predict that medium effects will be unrelated to children's reading skills.