E-book reading among Spanish university students
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/EL-05-2012-0048 |
| Date | 29 July 2014 |
| Pages | 473-492 |
| Published date | 29 July 2014 |
| Author | Maria Pinto,Cristina Pouliot,José Antonio Cordón-García |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Librarianship/library management,Library technology |
E-book reading among Spanish
university students
Maria Pinto
Faculty of Communication and Information Science,
University of Granada, Granada, Spain
Cristina Pouliot
e-Infosfera Research Group, Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain,
and
José Antonio Cordón-García
Faculty of Translation and Information Science, University of Salamanca,
Salamanca, Spain
Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to show data about Spanish higher-education students’ usage, habits and
perceptions regarding reading on new digital media to show the potential future of electronic books
(e-books) and reading mobile devices (e-readers, tablets, cell phones, etc) in academia. It explores
whether demographics and academic factors might inuence e-book reading habits and attitudes and
university students’ opinions about e-books vs print books. REWIL 2.0, a purpose-built research tool,
was applied to measure students’ opinions about digital reading in different media and formats,
considering their academic context, at the conuence of analog and digital materials and learning.
Likewise, REWIL 2.0 detects who are e-book readers (eBR) and who are not and produces a statistics
indicator to identify ve categories of eBRs by their frequency of e-book reading. This research
gathered 745 online surveys between April and July 2010 in 15 degree programs at the University of
Granada: Spanish philology, English philology, history, mathematics, chemistry, environmental
sciences, education, library and information science, law, medicine, biology, dentistry, computer
systems, architecture and civil engineering.
Design/methodology/approach – This present study is a transversal applied research, where 745
students were surveyed from 15 different academic disciplines offered at the University of Granada
(Spain), representing the ve main discipline areas. The survey was carried out by means of a structured
online survey, with REWIL 2.0 research tool. To ensure internal consistency of correlation between two
different survey items designed to measure e-book reading frequency, Pearson’s rreliability test was
applied. Likewise, Persons’ chi-squared statistics were applied to test the hypotheses and to detect if
signicant correlation existed between academic disciplines and e-book reading frequency measured
through a Likert scale.
The authors express their most sincere thanks to the sponsors of this research: Red de
Universidades Lectoras and Vice-Rectorado de Investigación of the University of Granada. They
greatly appreciate the collaboration received from the professors of the University of Granada
who helped them in online survey distribution in their classrooms, the professors of the University
of Salamanca who brought special support in pre-test, and the authors are especially grateful to
PhD David Guerrero and C. Inmaculada Acal who helped them immeasurably in the eldwork of
this study. The author would also like to express her appreciation to Marie Diane Buck, EdD for
the translation and revision of this paper.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0264-0473.htm
E-book reading
473
Received 11 May 2012
Revised 19 September 2012
Accepted 24 September 2012
The Electronic Library
Vol. 32 No. 4, 2014
pp. 473-492
© Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0264-0473
DOI 10.1108/EL-05-2012-0048
Findings – The present research is motivated by our interest in discovering what effect the current
technological maelstrom and the rapid growth of new portable digital reading devices in the Spanish
university environment are having on students’ lives, and the extent to which students have adopted
new reading technologies. Their rst aim is to establish who is reading e-books in the University? A
second aim is to answer the following question: is the academic discipline a determinant factor in e-book
reading habits and students’ attitudes about it? The authors began by considering the following
hypotheses: University students’ attitudes to e-book reading and the way they use them will be
determined by the scientic discipline they study. Students of humanities, social sciences and law will
prefer to read traditional format books (printed paper), while students of experimental sciences, health
and technical courses will prefer reading e-books. Students’ preferences will be determined by their
previous reading experiences.
Originality/value – The main objective of the present study is to learn whether there are any notable
differences among university students from distinct disciplines with regard to their attitude and
behavior toward e-books. The authors, therefore, set out to identify the segment of the student
population that does not read e-books yet (non-eBRs) from those who have already read at least one
(eBRs), and within this segment, the readers that have read e-books recently (recent eBRs); nd out how
frequently university students are reading in different formats (paper and digital), document types
(book, written press, etc.) and languages (textual, multimodal, etc.) identify what channels are used to
access e-books; nd out university students’ opinions on the advantages and disadvantages of reading
e-books as compared to traditional print books; and identify the types of improvements or changes to
the design–production–distribution–reception chain that students consider might help extend e-book
reading.
Keywords Academic libraries, E-learning, Information literacy, Electronic books
Paper type Case study
1. Introduction and background
The research tool used in the present study (REWIL 2.0) was developed at the beginning
of 2008, following the application of an initial survey on multimodal reading and access
to new reading formats in the public libraries of Andalusia (Pinto et al., 2009), for a
project funded by the Andalusian Regional Government’s Pacto Andaluz por el Libro
(PAPEL). The research team built on the experience of this exploratory phase to rene
the REWIL 2.0 tool and bring it up-to-date with the theoretical reformulations and
emerging phenomena associated with the introduction of new e-readers in the market
and, specically, those in university libraries. This second research phase is part of an
extended inter-university project with a wider scope, co-funded by the Red de
Universidades Lectoras (Network for Reading Universities) and the e-Infosfera Research
Group. This phase focuses on the student population at the University of Granada. A
third phase is planned to replicate the eld work, in the near future, using two more
Spanish universities, Salamanca and Extremadura, with the goal of obtaining
comparative data.
1.2 Problem statement
The present research is motivated by our interest in discovering what effect the current
technological maelstrom and the rapid growth of new portable digital reading devices in
the Spanish university environment are having on students’ lives, and the extent to
which students have adopted new reading technologies. Our rst purpose is to
investigate the groups reading electronic books (e-books) in the University. A second
area of research is to determine whether academic discipline is a determinant factor in
EL
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