Reading strategy and the need of e‐book features

The purpose of this paper is to explore college students' use of electronic reading strategies in reading e‐books and the features provided by e‐book systems. Both academic reading and leisure reading are evaluated from students' responses.

Both qualitative and quantitative data are collected. In total, eight college students volunteered for in‐depth interview to express their strategy in reading e‐books. Reading strategies employed by college students are summarized. A set of questionnaire items to assess electronic reading strategies and e‐book features for both academic and leisure reading is used for collecting quantitative data. To determine differences between academic reading and leisure reading, pair‐t is used among 201 respondents.

Interview data reveal that students use various strategies in reading e‐books. These reading strategies are categorized into “Use of prior experiences”, “Comprehension and decision making”, and “Self‐regulation and self‐monitoring”. From 26 questionnaire items for assessing students' need of reading strategies, 16 are found significantly different between academic reading and leisure reading (p<0.05). The necessity level of many e‐book features is significantly higher for academic reading than for leisure reading (p < 0.05).

Research on students' use of strategies in electronic reading is needed in the rich information world. In this study, the assessment of necessity level of using various electronic reading strategies and features provided by e‐book systems assessed from students' responses might be helpful for design of e‐book systems. However, further research on different reading audiences and specific domains may shed light on more guidelines for implementation and application.

It is hoped that the findings of this study will provide suggestions for the innovation of reading supports embedded in e‐book systems.