Uncovering print and digital literacies: what matters to undergraduates / Zuriani Yaacob... [et al.]

Reading has always been considered a crucial contributing factor in human advancement which is at the same time affecting one’s intellectual and emotional growth. However in Malaysia, reading culture has seemingly not significantly changed as it was observed in the study of Pandian (2000) that only 20% are ‘regular readers’ and the rest of Malaysian populations are ‘reluctant readers’. It was also found that when they were preparing for examinations, only then they spent time reading various materials. Nevertheless, with rapid development in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) taking place, it has impacted education system centred particularly on reading exercise. This is established by Hooper & Herath (2014) that reading habit has been affected by the technology which has changed the pattern of brain absorption of information. However, adolescents are reported devoting much more time reading digital resources and spending extra time to skim, download and browse information on the Internet (Liu, 2005). Therefore, current study aimed primarily at comparing reading habit percentage between print and screen-based of the respondents as well as investigating relationship between numbers and types of print-based materials. Quantitative data were collected and a questionnaire was used as a data collection tool. A total of 61 diploma students from Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Pahang Branch, Raub Campus, Malaysia were chosen and Spearman’s Rank Correlation Coefficient was employed to analyse their views. The results revealed students’ preferences in using traditional paper materials and how ICT has presented possibilities in encouraging students’ reading habits to develop. It is anticipated that future researches in the area will benefit from the findings and suggestions provided in this study.