A big thank you to those who came along to our Reading Club on 8th February 2023. In this meeting of the Reading Club we discussed Helen Hargreaves, Sarah Robin and Elizabeth Caldwell’s ‘Student Perceptions of Reading Digital Texts for University Study’ from Issue 24. It was great to have Sarah join us to take part in the discussions and provide further insight into her paper and research.
We started with an appropriate discussion of how we all read the paper in preparation for the Reading Club – which resulted in a variety of different answers, from reading the paper digitally on a laptop and an iPad, to printing the article out, and to reading digitally, but making notes with pen and paper.
Next, Sarah explained the team’s inspiration for investigating student perceptions of digital reading and writing this paper. Sarah outlined that this was linked to the team not feeling up-to-date with current students reading habits, which are much different to the team’s own experiences as student readers. This sparked further discussions of how reading is often a ‘hidden’ skill, which is seemingly confirmed by the small number of requests for embedded sessions on developing students reading skills in comparison to requests for support on writing and referencing.
The group also discussed the variety of reasons behind preferred reading medium, which can include: level of study / student, discipline, financial, accessibility and/or environmental. Alongside this, we also talked about the importance of acknowledging the different types of digital texts and mediums and recognise that digital reading, therefore, exists on a continuum – with different skills and approaches needed across this continuum.
Our next Reading Club will be held on Wednesday 12th April at 5:30pm
We will be in touch in advance of the meeting with a selection of JLDHE articles for you to choose from. We will then confirm the piece with the most votes and share the zoom link before the day. Please contact Craig if you would like to be added to the Reading Club mailing list.