The effect of reading on screen on comprehension of 8th grade students

The purpose of this research is to determine the effect of reading on screen on comprehension of 8th grade students. The research was conducted in accordance with the descriptive scanning model. Two different study groups were used in this research. The first study group consists of 74 volunteer students that have been chosen by simple random sampling among the 8th grade students who study at the Öğretmen Ali Baykal and Şehit Alibey Secondary Schools in Eşme in Uşak. The second study group consists of 30 students that have been chosen by purposeful sampling among that 74 volunteer students who participated the reading on screen practice. At first the texts which will be used in the practice were determined. For this, 10 different texts were selected from the Turkish coursebook which had been determined by the Ministry of Education to be studied through the 2013-2014 academik year. The texts are narrative. 6 out of these 10 different texts which are the closest ones as form and contents were determined by the groupwork with Turkish teachers and field experts. 4 open-ended comprehension questions-based on simple and deep understanding about the texts- were formed. These are the intra-textual questions from the students' workbook and the teachers' guidebook. Students were asked to read silently the 3 texts on printed material and the other 3 texts on 17 inch LCD screeen. After the texts were read, the students were given the reading comprehension questions and they were asked to answer these questions in writing. İn the last phase of the research' there was an interview and 4 different questions asked to the students. By these questions, it was aimed to understand the students' opinions about reading on screen. In the research, reading comprehension scores of students on reading on screen are significantly higher than the reading comprehension scores of the students on the printed material. According to this, reading comprehension differentiates according to reading environment. In other words, it can be said that reading on screen is more effective on understanding than reading from the printed material. Besides, the scores of the school girls both on reading on screen and reading from the printed materials are significantly higher than the school boys. Also, the school girls' point averages of reading comprehension on reading on screen are higher than the point averages of reading comprehension on reading from printed materials and that is statistically significant in favour of reading on screen. On the other hand, this situation is different for school boys. Even though the school boys' point averages of reading comprehension on reading on screen are higher than the point averages of reading comprehension on reading from printed materials, this difference is not statistically significant. According to these results, it can be said that school girls have a better comprehension on reading on screen. As for school boys, the level of reading comprehension doesn't change by environment.