Arab Educational Information Network

The purpose of this research was to investigate whether independent variables of reading media- digital or print, in addition to text length-being long texts or short-had any impact on student reading performance. Moreover, the study also sought to shed light on whether metacognitive strategies applied by students were impacted by the independent variables of digital/print media as well as text length. Finally, the study served to explore whether there was any correlation between Proficient, Average Proficient and Non-Proficient student performance and metacognitive strategy use, and to shed light on students’ reading preferences of digital and print and why. The research at hand was a mixed-methods, explanatory sequential case study involving a convenient, purposive sample of 111 students from an advanced research writing course in an English-speaking private university in Beirut. Data collection involved two questionnaires, OSORS and SORS, reading achievement tests as well as semi-structured, focus group interviews. Findings seemed to illustrate that the medium of reading and text length influence both student performance and metacognitive strategy use: that is, students performed better on offline short texts, as opposed to online short texts, and that the most predominant use of metacognitive strategies were for Problem-Solving Strategies, both offline and online. Moreover, students seemed to perform better on online long exams due to students’ over-reliance on “Control+F” an algorithm used to help students find information rather than read through the texts. Finally, semi-structured interviews revealed that student preference went for offline reading when preparing for an exam or when deep analysis was required, while online reading was used when students simply “wanted to get a quick idea about something”. Implications for further research thus invite instructors to teach students the necessary metacognitive skills enabling them to navigate their way across different reading media. (Author’s abstract)