INTERNATIONAL GRADUATE DIPLOMA PROGRAMME

September 2016

Research Proposal Form

1000- 1250 words (excluding List of References).

Student's name:

Yukiko Kitamura
Research Question:

Has digital technology changed university students' reading habits in the UK?
What affects their choice of e-books or print books and which do they use
more?

Supervisors name:

Victoria Richardson
Literature Review (minimum 500 words):

Over the past decade, technology has been changing books and our reading
habits, with e-books taking a growing proportion of the market. According to
Jiang and Katsamakas (2010, p.386), the emergence of Internet and e-book
technology make publishing and printed book market slump fell, and a new
way for book delivery to readers was established by technology of e-book.
Although the total sales of book in 2008 reduced 2.8% in the US, that of e-
book increased 68.4% (AAP 2009 cited in Jiang and Katsamakes,2010,
p.386). It could be expected that the reading habit such as reading frequency,
the main purpose of reading, place of reading or reading style might be
affected by the development of the Internet or e-book technology. The
purpose of the research is that find what factors affect reading habit of higher
education students in the UK, and what governs their choice of e-books
versus printed books.

Research into the impact of technology on reading habits appears to draw

different conclusions. A number of researchers pointed out that the
development of the internet and technology might increase the amount of
reading time (Shimray, Keerti, and Ramaiah, 2015, p.343). However, the
results of other research indicated the opposite. For example, Huang et al.
(2014, p.451, p.456, p.458) found that many students think that the Internet
actually discourages students from reading books. Moreover, a lot of students
in the US answered that they spent more time to use the Internet than reading
books and watching TV (Mokhtari, Reichard, and Gardner, 2009, p.614).
According to Zhang and Kudva (2014, p.1705), reading frequency might also
tend to reduce generally. There is a debate over whether technology will lead
to an increase or a decrease in the amount of time spent reading.

A lot of university students in wealthier nations already have experience of

reading e-books on a regular basis. In Europe, the research shows high
satisfaction about e-book reader in Norway (Olsen, Kleivset, and Langseth,
2013, p.5), though the attitude of students to something new in Amsterdam
are positive, a lot of them disappointed to the function of e-book and e-reader
(Stoop, Kreutzer, and Kircz, 2013, p.296). In addition, the research in
University in Spain found that huge number of students prefer printed books
to digital books (Pinto, Pouliot, and Antonio Cordn-Garca, 2014, p.486).
However, according to a UK survey, young people are now much more likely
to prefer to read on a computer screen rather than a printed book or magazine
(National literacy trust 2011 cited in Shimray, Keerti, and Ramaiah, 2015,
p.345). The research of Farinosi, Lim, and Roll (2016, p.414) found that
German and Italian students commented about that paper books are suitable
for long and complex texts due to the condition of eyes and concentration,
and the opinion of students in the UK was that it is easy to write some note on
the print books. The opinion about the online books in the research was that
students in Germany and the UK consider online books might be easier to
transport than printed books, and Italian student mentioned that online books
might be cheaper than printed books (Farinosi, Lim, and Roll, 2016, p.417).
On the other hand, people who read e-books via e-reader were a minority and
almost all students read them on their own device in the US, though there
were the huge number of students who read e-books (Foasberg, 2011,
p.111). In addition, the research which focuses on the using of Kindle by
students found many students commented that Kindle will not take the place
of printed books and a lot of students who used Kindle for the research had
complained about the functions of Kindle (Pattuelli and Rabina, 2010, p.242).
Furthermore, the research of Pattuelli and Rabina (2010, p.240) and that of
Foasberg (2014, p.711) found that many students think that e-books might be
suitable to short reading. In addition, the research in the US by Zhang and
Kudva (2014, pp.1703-1704) indicated that people who have higher education
tend to adopt digital books.

According to Shimray, Keerti, and Ramaiah (2015, p.345) and Farinosi, Lim,
and Roll (2016, p.414) consider that students might choose e-books or printed
books depend on a reading purpose, for example, many of students read
digital editions in a learning context (Shimray, Keerti, and Ramaiah, 2015,
p.345). In addition, Foasberg (2014, p.713) also pointed out the possibility that
student reading purpose might change depending on whether it is during the
semester or not, because the result in the article showed that some students
read for academic and they read a lot for entertainment while vacationing, and
some of them complain they cannot read for enjoyment during semester.

Some of the previous research showed that the Internet might decrease
reading time or change reading habit, and there are some differing opinions
about e-book and e-reader. Furthermore, the most popular purpose of reading
was academic reading. However, the existing research mainly focuses on
students in the USA, and there do not appear to be extensive studies on
reading habits among students in the UK. It might be expected that UK
students would show similar reading habit and adoption of e-books to US
students but as yet there is insufficient data to confirm this hypothesis. This
project aim to go some way towards filling that gap.

Aim and objectives (around 100 words):

The aim of the research is to investigate reading habits of higher education

students in the UK such as what do they read, how often, for how long, and
for what purposes and to find out whether the higher education students
prefer e-books or printed books and what factors affect their preference.
The reading habit in this research means reading place, how often, what
type of book and what format. In addition, students reading purpose and what
factors affect to a choice of e-books and printed book will also be researched.

Methods (around 200 words):

The methodology will consist primary research and secondary research.

Primary research
To ask questions about reading habit and e-books to students in higher
education in the UK.
Questionnaire might be consisted by about 30 questions and I am planning
to collect answer from around 30 students in INTO, and the number of student
might increase, and answer will be collected from different university students
such as Newcastle or UCL through the research.
Pilot questions will be made first and ask 4 students to answer the plot
exploratory, after that the questionnaire may be amended on the basis of the
pilot.
To analyse trend and finding from the answer of university students.
To show figure of the answer of university students in diagrams.
To compare the findings in the literature regarding US students reading
habits with the data I gather

Secondary research
To analyse and report on existing research about student reading habits
and uptake of e-books
To find out whether research suggests students prefer e-books or printed
books
Key words searching and citation searching
To find some article which explain about book industry and market in the
UK and Europe respectively

Project Structure and Time plan (minimum 200 words):

Section 1: Introduction
The research aim and the background of digital books will be explained. In
addition, key words and the definition of reading habit in this research will be
explained as well. A brief outline of what will be covered in the project and the
thesis statement will be provided.

Section 2: Literature review

Details of the existing research on university students reading habits and
what extend digital books are common will be provided in this chapter. In
addition, different arguments will be compared and contrasted as well.

Section 3: Methodology
The question will be answered through a combination of primary and
secondary research, and it will be explained what questions will ask to
students.

Section 4: Findings
To analyse the data collected from college students
To describe some graphs for the data.

Section 5: Discussion
The findings from the research will be discussed in this section, and some
expectations from the result of research also will be written. In addition,
academic article which researched close topic will be compared with the
research.

Section 6: Conclusion
Restatement of the argument.
Findings and expectations will be written shortly.

Time Plan

To make the draft of questions: 9/01/2017-22/01/2017

Finish to make questions and ask questions experimentally and
amend: 23/01/2017-05/02/2017
To ask questions to students: 06/02/2017- 26/02/2017
To analyse the answer from students: 27/02/2017-12/03/2017
 Further reading articles and collect data: 9/01/2017 27/03/2017
Submission of research project draft: week 23 20/02/2017
Writing section 1:13/02/2017-19/02/2017
Writing section 2: 20/02/2017-26/02/2017
Writing section 3: 27/02/2017-05/03/2017
Writing section4: 06/03/2017- 12/03/2017
Writing section 5: 13/03/2017-19/03/2017
Writing section 6: 20/03/2017-27/03/2017
Check and review whole of the research: 28/03/2017-10/04/2017
Reference list: 11/04/2017-15/04/2017
Submit research project: week 32 24/04/2017

List of References:

Farinosi, M., Lim, C. and Roll, J. (2016) Book or screen, pen or keyboard? A
cross-cultural sociological analysis of writing and reading habits basing on
Germany, Italy and the UK, Telematics and Informatics, 33(2), pp. 410421.
doi: 10.1016/j.tele.2015.09.006.

Foasberg, N.M. (2011) Adoption of e-book readers among college students:

A survey, Information Technology and Libraries, 30(3). doi:
10.6017/ital.v30i3.1769.

Foasberg, N.M. (2014) Student reading practices in print and electronic

media, College & Research Libraries, 75(5), pp. 705723. doi:
10.5860/crl.75.5.705.

Huang, S., Capps, M., Blacklock, J. and Garza, M. (2014) Reading habits of
college students in the United States, Reading Psychology, 35(5), pp. 437
467. doi: 10.1080/02702711.2012.739593.

Jiang, Y. and Katsamakas, E. (2010) Impact of e-book technology:

Ownership and market asymmetries in digital transformation, Electronic
Commerce Research and Applications, 9(5), pp. 386399. doi:
10.1016/j.elerap.2010.06.003.

Mokhtari, K., Reichard, C.A. and Gardner, A. (2009) The impact of Internet
and television use on the reading habits and practices of college
students, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 52(7), pp. 609619. doi:
10.1598/jaal.52.7.6.

Olsen, A.N., Kleivset, B. and Langseth, H. (2013) E-book readers in higher

education: Student reading preferences and other data from surveys at the
university of Agder, SAGE Open, 3(2). doi: 10.1177/2158244013486493.

Pattuelli, M.C. and Rabina, D. (2010) Forms, effects, function: LIS students
attitudes towards portable ebook readers, Aslib Proceedings, 62(3), pp. 228
244. doi: 10.1108/00012531011046880.
Pinto, M., Pouliot, C. and Antonio Cordn-Garca, J. (2014) E-book reading
among Spanish university students, The Electronic Library, 32(4), pp. 473
492. doi: 10.1108/el-05-2012-0048.
Shimray, S.R., Keerti, C. and Ramaiah, C.K. (2015) An overview of mobile
reading habits, DESIDOC Journal of Library and Information Technology,
35(5), pp. 343354. doi: 10.14429/djlit.35.5.8901.

Stoop, J., Kreutzer, P. and Kircz, J. (2013) Reading and learning from
screens versus print: A study in changing habits, New Library World,
114(7/8), pp. 284300. doi: 10.1108/nlw-01-2013-0012.

Zhang, Y. and Kudva, S. (2014) E-books versus print books: Readers

choices and preferences across contexts, Journal of the Association for
Information Science and Technology, 65(8), pp. 16951706. doi:
10.1002/asi.23076.