Reading Preferences

This study aimed at exploring gender differences in reading habits of university students in Pakistan. The data was collected through a questionnaire from 1050 male and female students of three universities located in Punjab province. The results show that the reading habits of male and female students were somewhat different depending upon their objective, liking, timing of study and other factors. Female students exhibited comparatively more positive attitude towards reading as compared to their male counterparts. It is recommended that teachers at universities must play an active role in motivating, guiding and supervising students for developing positive reading habits especially among male students. Libraries of higher education institutions should be well equipped with a variety of printed and electronic reading materials, and must provide students with conducive reading environment.

Reading mediums have reached a wider range of facilities in the last couple of decades whereas paper has been almost the only choice for a long time. Academically, with the development of electronic learning approaches, students are involved in reading from a digital screen much more than before. The huge corpus of instruction which flows through digital screens arises some questions on students’ preferences and comfort about reading from a digital screen instead of reading from conventional printed papers. The aim of this study is to investigate the preferences of university students for reading from a printed text or from a digital screen in 2008 and 2014 and also to reveal if this preference changes depending on their gender or department. A questionnaire was conducted to 792 students from eight different departments of the faculty of education. Results indicate that, the majority of the students still prefer traditional printed paper instead of digital screen for their reading activities and this preference of them have not changed in 6 years. Furthermore, whereas gender does not play an effective role in this preference, the students’ department may affect their choice.

Spangler (1983) clarified the distinction between reading interests and reading preferences. Preference studies are those that look at children's expressed attitudes toward reading, and they indicate what children might read if given the opportunity. Reading interest studies, on the other hand, examine actual reading behaviors of children by analyzing the books children have indeed read.

Partiendo de una investigación realizada con 324 escolares de colegios públicos de Oviedo, este trabajo analiza las preferencias lectoras del alumnado asturiano de 6º de Primaria. Para ello, se presentan los datos relativos a preferencias según tipos de textos, aspectos valorados en las lecturas, criterios de selección y obras preferidas. Los menores pre eren la narrativa de cción actual, especialmente ciertos subgéneros, aunque también les gustan los libros de conocimientos, las revistas y los cómics. Valoran las obras entretenidas, pero también prestan atención a su temática y la utilidad para el aprendizaje. En la selección de lecturas, tienen en cuenta los paratextos, las recomendaciones de sus iguales y el in ujo del cine y la televisión. Además, leen los libros que les regalan y los de autores o series conocidas. Finalmente, se aprecian diferencias con respecto al sexo en la valoración de ciertos subgéneros y en las preferencias temáticas.

This work, based on a research carried out with 324 schoolchildren from state schools of Oviedo, analyses the reading preferences of Asturian children from 6th Grade of Primary Education. With this purpose, it presents the data related to reading preferences depending on the type of text, the most appreciated elements in reading materials, the criteria for selecting texts and the preferred works. Children prefer current ctional narrative, especially certain subgenres, although they also like books for learning, magazines and comics. They appreciate amusing books, but also pay attention to their subject and pedagogical usefulness. When selecting readings, children take into account the paratexts, the peers' recommendations and the in uence of cinema and television. Besides, children read literary works written by famous authors or belonging to book series they know. Finally, some differences concerning sex are identi ed in the assessment of certain subgenres, as well as in thematic preferences.

This study aimed at exploring gender differences in reading habits of university students in Pakistan. The data was collected through a questionnaire from 1050 male and female students of three universities located in Punjab province. The results show that the reading habits of male and female students were somewhat different depending upon their objective, liking, timing of study and other factors. Female students exhibited comparatively more positive attitude towards reading as compared to their male counterparts. It is recommended that teachers at universities must play an active role in motivating, guiding and supervising students for developing positive reading habits especially among male students. Libraries of higher education institutions should be well equipped with a variety of printed and electronic reading materials, and must provide students with conducive reading environment.

Books are the invaluable, colossal storage of mankind’s immense scholarship and are still commonly perceived as a more reliable source of knowledge even in this age of digitized information. Extensive reading is often promoted as being vital to cognitive development, especially for students in primary and secondary education. While it could now be considered common knowledge that reading is highly beneficial, reading habits vary among individuals in the same culture and receiving the same public education. This could be due to demographic variations and differences in socioeconomic status, or other factors such as family background and education. Despite the ample literature on reading habits, there still exists a lack of holistic approach with empirical results concerning the reciprocal interactions of reading and its relevant affecting factors. This data article presents a dataset of 1676 responses to the survey “Studying reading habits and preferences” of junior high school stude...

El auge de las redes sociales se ha convertido en el referente de la comunicación por Internet. Los jóvenes no solo no son ajenos a esta realidad, sino que han hecho del uso de las redes sociales una de sus aficiones preferidas, contribuyendo a su extensión de forma exponencial. El análisis de estas redes sociales muestra que sí que hay jóvenes españoles, aunque sean una minoría, que manifiestan sus preferencias literarias en las redes sociales. Por ello, en este trabajo se describen los resultados de un estudio sobre las alusiones a la lectura en el discurso de los jóvenes españoles en la red social Twitter, que es una de las más empleadas por ellos. Con esto se pretende definir su opinión de la lectura, sus preferencias literarias y la función que estas tienen en la formación de la identidad adolescente. Para ello, se analizan quinientos cincuenta perfiles creados por usuarios españoles con edades comprendidas entre los doce y los dieciocho años.

This study aimed at exploring gender differences in reading habits of university students in Pakistan. The data was collected through a questionnaire from 1050 male and female students of three universities located in Punjab province. The results show that the reading habits of male and female students were somewhat different depending upon their objective, liking, timing of study and other factors. Female students exhibited comparatively more positive attitude towards reading as compared to their male counterparts. It is recommended that teachers at universities must play an active role in motivating, guiding and supervising students for developing positive reading habits especially among male students. Libraries of higher education institutions should be well equipped with a variety of printed and electronic reading materials, and must provide students with conducive reading environment.

Two studies were conducted to investigate gender differences in a sample of young South African readers from poor communities. In the first study, the self-reported reading preferences of 2 775 readers on a mobile phone platform supplied by the FunDza Literacy Trust were surveyed. Both male and female readers indicated that they liked four genres in particular: romance, drama, non- fiction, and stories with specific South African content. There were nevertheless some differences, such as that a higher percentage of males liked stories involving sport. The second study examined the unique FunDza site visits made by readers, as a proxy measure of what they actually were reading. Four genres stood out: romance, drama, biography, and action/adventure. Again the similarity between male and female readers was noticeable, although many more females than males read content on the site.