Understanding College Students’ Engagement in Mobile Reading for Sustainability in Education: A Case Study from China
Abstract
:1. Introduction
1.1. Multidimensions of Reading Engagement
1.2. Factors Affecting Mobile Reading
1.3. The Aim and Research Question of Current Study
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Design: Qualitative Content Analysis with an Inductive Approach
2.2. Participants and Data Collection
2.3. Data Analysis
3. Results
3.1. Imbalance between Needs and Engagement Effect
3.2. Information Needs
‘…I usually read on mobile to acquire information of various aspects, because I think mobile apps provide latest news and essays, which keeps me up to date.’(P1)
‘… the apps or platforms I follow mainly push the news, current affairs at home and abroad, and information of interests to me when I open the phone.’(P4)
‘…mobile reading does expand my knowledge, because the information got from the mobile apps helps me understand the world and increase my knowledge on various aspects of life.’(P2)
‘…mobile reading is more convenient than paper book reading, and it is updated all the time, so that you can get the latest and comprehensive information. Further, it provides many channels of information with enrich the content I am looking for.’(P15)
3.3. Academic Needs
‘…if you use APP like CNKI or Web of Science Database, you can learn about some frontiers of my major, as well as the background history, the current situation, and the future trend in this field.’(P21)
‘…through mobile reading, I can learn more professional knowledge, and let me no longer receive academic knowledge information narrowly from the class. It is also very helpful for my career planning after I know more about this field.’(P25)
3.4. Social Needs
‘I will forward the interesting content that I read to my friends or classmates. Especially when the author wrote something that I agree with, I would like to forward it as a way to express my agreement to the author and my recommendation to the friends.’(P17)
‘…It has a great impact on social interaction. If you don’t pay much attention to hot topics, news events, or popular online novels through your mobile phone, sometimes you may not be able to get in on the chat between your classmates, or you don’t understand their discussions. There will also be a lack of channels to absorb fresh ideas.’(P22)
‘…On Weibo(microblog), you can recognize online friends from different places who resonate with you…I like to read other readers’ comments which contain the commenters’ opinions or some information’(P30)
3.5. Emotional Needs
‘It will also help me in terms of emotional needs. When I feel frustrated, I will read some inspirational essays or blogs. Also, sometimes I read beautiful poetry and proses, which can relax my mood.’(P18)
‘When I am bored, I like to read via mobile Apps to spend time. For example, when I am irritable, reading funny novels let me feel better and calm down. Sometimes, I read in the bed as it can aid sleep.’(P11)
‘It also helps me to be relax when I feel stressful because of the studying.’(P8)
‘There will be changes in my emotions. I may be affected by the content of news. Sometimes, I will be excited, and sometimes I feel angry. In general, if I read something I am interested in, I will read the content with joy.’(P30)
‘If I read research articles, and then reread my own papers, I will feel depressed with pressure. But I feel relaxed when read on microblogs.’(P15)
3.6. Reading Experience
‘It (mobile reading) is convenient because I can easily find what I want through searching online. Also, the content often updates with rich and comprehensive information…but mostly I use mobile reading for entertainment, such as reading microblog which may not include knowledgeable content. I usually forget what I read.’(P15)
‘…Sometimes in order to attract readers’ attention, the title will be too exaggerated, then it has certain impact on us, such as how to treat on and how to think about it. I think we have to learn to distinguish and identify.’(P18)
‘…The quality of content maybe low. The information that we read on the mobile phone is actually filtered layer by layer, and so the original source of the news we read may be completely different. After all, we usually couldn’t get the first-hand information through mobile reading. So, sometimes I am not sure about the authenticity of the content….’(P1)
‘The screen of the mobile phone is small and a little reflective, so my eyes are uncomfortable and the reading experience is not very good because of the screen.(P13)
‘…Sometimes, if the layout of mobile reading is not good, I cannot remember what I read. Thus, the reading experience isn’t good either.’(P1)
3.7. Reading Self-Efficacy
‘…WeChat and QQ message notifications on mobile phones, advertisements, links to some apps, and other essays recommendations on the page inevitably affect my concentration on mobile reading. So, I felt mobile reading always distract me from the reading texts. ’(P8)
… ‘Usually, I can’t help reading other irrelevant things like blogs on my mobile phone, when I learning through mobile reading.’(P15)
‘I think it is possible that I can’t remember some content very clearly after reading, so I have to look back for this. But mobile reading will affect my efficiency of looking for the specific content.’(P5)
‘It is possible to mark directly on the paper books, but not on the mobile terminal. I have to read several times when I have to remember something through mobile reading. For me, the influence of mobile reading is mainly on the memory.’(P4)
3.8. Strategies for Comprehension
‘I didn’t take notes during mobile reading; I didn’t know how to do that; usually I read novels through mobile reading’.(P23)
‘When I read articles, I usually extract useful information from them, and make electronic notes and saved in the computer. In that way, I have a bibliographic note almost every week.’(P14)
‘I think it is easy to mark sentences on the mobile screen. When I download and read an article from the CNKI app (China National Knowledge Infrastructure), the content that I think is important or helpful to me will be highlighted or underlined in different colours.’(P15)
‘Sometimes I take screenshots of the information that I want and save it; sometimes I copy and write a few sentences of some good articles down in my notebook.’(P12)
‘I will take notes, and add comments and tags as well if the reading content is related to my major or it is helpful and informative…Sometimes, I will draw a mind mapping to help me clarify the author’s views.’(P26)
4. Discussion
Limitations
5. Conclusions and Implications
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Items | Categories | Number of Samples | Proportion |
---|---|---|---|
Gender | Male | 13 | 43% |
Female | 17 | 57% | |
Educational background | Bachelor | 18 | 60% |
Master’s and PhD | 12 | 40% | |
Major | Literature, History, Philosophy, and Art | 10 | 33% |
Science Technology | 7 | 24% | |
Education Science and Social Science | 13 | 43% |
Meaning Unit | Condensed Meaning Unit | Codes | Sub-Categories | Main Categories | Theme |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
I (major in Art and Design) think mobile reading is helpful for my academic learning. For example, I can easily find art paintings and the essays about these paintings, which improves my aesthetics. I can also find more works of some famous painters. In a word, the impact of mobile reading on improving the ability to acquire and integrate information is subtle……However, I think mobile reading is like a very thin sheet. It covers diverse aspects of learning, but has only a thin layer. If you’re going to dig deep, you have to turn to paper reading. So, for me, mobile reading is a kind of shallow and simple reading. I know this, but sometimes there’s no better option, because I can’t carry a book at all times. | Mobile reading is helpful in finding works of art and painters that are necessary for academic learning. Mobile reading gradually improves my ability to search and integrate information. Mobile reading produces shallow understanding. | Helpful for academic learning. Improves one’s ability for information retrieval and integration. Difficult to read in depth on one’s mobile. | Broadening academic knowledge. Information retrieval Low reading efficiency | Academic needs Information needs Reading self-efficacy | Imbalance between needs and engagement effect |
Theme | Imbalance between Needs and Engagement Effect | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sub-Theme | Factors to Motivate Mobile Reading | Factors Affecting Reading Engagement Effect | |||||
Main categories | Academic needs | Emotional needs | Social needs | Information needs | Reading experience | Reading self-efficacy | Strategies for comprehension |
Sub-categories | Finish learning tasks and review academic knowledge learnt in class; broaden academic knowledge; prepare for research paper and thesis. (49) | To be relaxed, happy, and at ease; to help one sleep; it depends on what is being read. (14) | Sharing reading experience; expectation of making friends; group identification; exchanging opinions with peers. (45) | Acquire updated and comprehensive information; information retrieval ability; information integration ability. (68) | As a means of entertainment; rich and easy-to-obtain information; diverse platforms and content; affected by the reading content and the platform, e.g., the screen size, the font, and the layout; whether the screen is harmful for one’s eyes. (55) | Disturbed reading because of social or news apps; low reading efficiency; fast reading with low retention; difficulty reading in depth. (77) | Comments, tags, highlights, making notes, skimming and skipping, reading back. (39) |
Theme | Sub-Theme | Main Categories | Undergraduate (N = 18) | Postgraduate (N = 12) | In Total |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Imbalance between needs and engagement effects | Factors to motivate mobile reading | Academic needs | 25 | 24 | 49 |
Emotional needs | 22 | 12 | 34 | ||
Social needs | 30 | 25 | 45 | ||
Information needs | 42 | 26 | 68 | ||
Factors affecting one’s reading | Reading experience | 35 | 20 | 55 | |
Reading self-efficacy | 48 | 29 | 77 | ||
Strategies for comprehension | 18 | 21 | 39 |
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Liu, T.; Li, Y.; Feng, M.; Chen, Y.; Zhang, T. Understanding College Students’ Engagement in Mobile Reading for Sustainability in Education: A Case Study from China. Sustainability 2023, 15, 2848. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15032848
Liu T, Li Y, Feng M, Chen Y, Zhang T. Understanding College Students’ Engagement in Mobile Reading for Sustainability in Education: A Case Study from China. Sustainability. 2023; 15(3):2848. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15032848
Chicago/Turabian StyleLiu, Tingting, Yingjie Li, Mengqin Feng, Yan Chen, and Tianyi Zhang. 2023. "Understanding College Students’ Engagement in Mobile Reading for Sustainability in Education: A Case Study from China" Sustainability 15, no. 3: 2848. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15032848