Does students’ exposure to websites moderate the positive relationship between print exposure and text comprehension?

Abstract

In this study, I investigated the print exposure and website exposure of undergraduates in relation to their scores on a text comprehension test. Print exposure was measured with a national version of the author recognition test, whereas a new website recognition test was developed to measure students’ exposure to texts on the internet. The participants’ reading attitudes and number of years in higher education were included as control variables. Exploratory factor analysis suggested that three factors are measured by the website recognition test: (1) lifestyle topics; (2) news and culture; and (3) social activity. The results showed that only print exposure predicted text comprehension significantly and positively, but not for students with a high score on the website recognition test. Moderation analyses indicated that the pattern was clearest for the social activity factor of the website recognition measure. Hence, high activity on social media seems to diminish or remove the positive relationship between print exposure and text comprehension. The results confirm that print exposure relates positively to important aspects of students’ literacy, while further studies should be carried out to investigate the potential negative relationship between website exposure and literacy.