Technological Influence In Reading Comprehension

Topic: Technological influences in education particularly in reading comprehension

Objective: To determine if the environment specifically technological environment influences the aptitude of students in reading.

Review of Literature

There are various scores of studies on reading comprehension based on quantitative research method. In this research, it is proposed that a qualitative research be implemented to determine the reading comprehension of students. While statistics may show the scores of students, it is evident that comprehension should be analyzed in context and not just based on the figures of readings texts. In the study of Julie Corio entitled “Exploring Literacy on the Internet”, it was suggested that “the ability to learn, comprehend and interact with technology in a meaningful way” is yet to be explored fully (p. 458). In an age where children are inundated with information from the internet and books are already formatted to be read in tablets, laptops and even in phones, we question the ability of children to comprehend deeper meanings when they are studying. The world has become an “instant” and “entitled” world as people come to rely heavily on technology in understanding concepts. Children exhibit attitude of entitlement wherein everything is spoon-fed through the use of technology. As such, it is only timely to do a qualitative research if technology can really positively influence the reading abilities of students.

For Vicky Cohen and John Cowen, in their book, “Literacy for Children in an Information Age”, technology is valuable for children with learning disabilities. This means that technology-aided learning has opened a different vista in teaching children with disabilities because of the different ch...

... middle of paper ...

...rent levels of reading comprehension vis-à-vis reading technology used excluding base differences.

Limitations

Since we will use purely qualitative research, it is expected that the study will be more exhaustive in terms of interaction with participants. This is a weakness of the qualitative research as compared with a quantitative research where statistics and figures can provide explicit data that would empirically strengthen a study. However, it must be noted that reading comprehension is not just about statistics, it is how the learner was able to understand what he/she reads which would be in different contexts. As stated by Berry, true “feelings” without reflection would be difficult to understand without the context in which it was said (p. 328). This is where the strength of qualitative research method comes in and on which we would based the investigation.