BECE. Newsletter 

Vol.8, No.2, 2021 1154 

 

 

 

 

Effects of E-reading on Reading Literacy 

By Li, W., & Yao, J. 
Correspondence to: Yao, J., Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, Chi-

na, 210023. Email: yaojijun_njnu@163.com  

N the information society, more and more students are reading through 

electronic devices. However, there is no consistent conclusion about the 

influence of the change of reading style on the reading effect. In addition, the 

current discussions on the merits of “screen reading” and “book reading” are 

mostly based on experience rather than scientific evidence. A small amount 

of empirical research still has a large room for improvement in the authorita-

tiveness and representativeness of data and the robustness of conclusions. In 

this case, the research published in Open Education Research analyzed the 

influence of the different ways of reading on the reading literacy of students. 

The researchers selected variables related to the reading in the PISA2018 da-

tabase, using the least-square regression method to establish the baseline. 

The selection bias is controlled by the Coarsen Exact Matching technique. 

Furthermore, the quantile regression and the mediation effect model are used 

to explore the heterogeneity of e-reading and its influencing mechanism. The 

findings of the research are as follow: 

 The “screen disadvantage” does exist, whether the selection bias is 

controlled or not, which indicates the effect that “screen reading” is 

not up to “book reading”. 

 Quantile regression results show that the different levels of students 

have significant differences under the influence of e-reading, and 

students under the influence of e-reading at different quantiles have 

a significant decline trend. The effects of e-reading on students at 

the lower and upper quantile of the reading literacy experiment were 

distinctly different. Moreover, there may be a “Matthew Effect” in 

the process of e-reading. 

 The results of mediation effect analysis show that metacognitive 

strategies can play an important role in promoting and mediating 

reading, and good reading metacognitive strategies can help students 

effectively eliminate the negative effects of e-reading. 

 

Source: Open Education Research, 2021; 27(2):110-120.
 

 

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