A Study of Differences in Teen Reading Formats and Their Effects on Interest, Engagement and Comprehension By Jessica E. Moyer University of Minnesota May 5, 2009

Research Questions  Are teens really not reading as much today as they did in the past?  Are teens reading, but in nontraditional formats that cause underreporting?  If the surveys focus on book reading, what about all the teens who do all their reading online or in digital formats?  What about the teens who listen to audiobooks?  If the questions are only concerned with literature, then how are we counting the many people who read nonfiction, newspapers, magazines, and websites?

Reading Formats and Comprehension, Interest and Engagement  One way to address these questions and start to gain deeper understanding of the new ways of reading is to study readers’ preferred formats for reading.  Do they prefer to read print books or e-books, or do they prefer to listen to audiobooks?  Can they comprehend at the same level across all formats?  Do they comprehend best when reading in their preferred format, or is there a single format in which most teens comprehend best?  Do teens report being more engaged and/or interested in leisure reading texts in one format over another?

Data Sources  Format preference ranking  ACT scores  Format experiment  Comprehension measures  Interest and engagement measures  EDA or other neuroscience data  General reading questionnaire  Selected follow up interviews for case studies

Experimental Design