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This study aims to attempt to understand the reading habits and attitudes of the Bachelor of IT students and the Bachelor of Arts students from the International Islamic University Malaysia. The study also aims to explore these differences in terms of gender.

The study used a survey approach in collecting the data. The population of the study was the undergraduate students from two academic faculties at the university. The faculties were Kulliyyah of Information and Communication Technology (KICT) (IT‐based) and Kuliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Science (KIRKH) (arts‐based). Based on the 400 sample drawn, 127 responses were received from the survey.

The study finds that the web site is seen as an increasingly important reading source. Significant differences exist between academic programs and types of reading materials and reading resources particularly use the web sites. Some differences in reading habits and attitudes were also observed between male and female participants.

Limitations in this study are related to the small sample size, the inclusion of only two academic faculties, and the limited amount of variables studied.

In general, the findings of the study should assist the University authority, especially the library and the computing department, to look into service matters pertaining to accommodating the reading as well as the studying habits of the student.

The pattern of reading, as is known from the past, may not be the same as reading as it is known today or in the future. Research in reading habits needs to be further updated by including current advancement in ICT, where the technology has enabled reading to be more timely and somewhat non‐linear by using devices such as computers, PDAs and wireless phones without the presence of any printed document.

This paper aims to describe the effects of the Dutch policy program the Library at School on primary school pupils’ leisure book reading and attitude towards reading books, in the first year of the nationwide implementation of the program.Design/methodology/approach – In monitoring the effectiveness of the Library at School, online questionnaires were administered to students (grades 2‐6), teachers and reading‐media consultants. The study is based on data collected in the school year 2011‐2012 from a sample of 4,682 students from 229 classes, with 284 teachers of 68 schools.

Multilevel regression analyses show that effects of the Library at School on reading attitude and leisure reading cannot yet be discerned in 2011‐2012, although slightly positive univariate effects are found.

As yet, the number of participating schools is limited, hence statistical power is low on that level. Whether the sample can be considered representative for all Dutch primary schools is not certain.

The findings suggest that a school library in itself is not sufficient to promote book reading in leisure time. The role of the reading‐media consultant in facilitating both teachers and learners might have to be strengthened.

This study gives a first glimpse at the effects of the program the Library at School on the reading attitude and leisure reading of primary school students in The Netherlands. The continuous monitoring approach employed is new and can be helpful for similar policy programs in other countries.

The paper aims to investigate the impact of e-books on attitude towards reading among elementary school students. The paper also reflects on issues related to readings and e-books.

Experimental method of research was used to carry out the study. Experiment was conducted on fourth-grade students in an international school in Kuwait. The control group consisted of nine students. The experimental group had 16 students: eight read the book under the “read-to-me” feature and the other half read the book alone. Students in the two groups were assigned readings randomly and their reactions were studied and compared using different methods.

The experiment demonstrated that students enjoyed reading the electronic medium more than the paperback alternative. The difference, however, was not significant. In addition, difference between the comprehension levels of the three conditions was also insignificant. Students did, however, finish reading the paperback book in a significantly shorter time.

A pilot study would have been desirable and also the number of questions asked in the comprehension test could have been expanded. The authors were also not able to explore the possibility of using an automated tool to record the reading time. The two reading instruments used (iPads and iPods) might have affected the students’ understanding and enjoyment of the book, although no noticeable differences were found.

The experiment indicted that one of the apparent benefits of reading the e-book was its built-in picture dictionary, as the book used in the study incorporated a lot of word coinage in his texts. Lessons learnt from the study can benefit in enhancing features of e-books and designing reading programmes to help build more positive attitude towards reading among children.

Little research has been reported in the literature on investigation of e-books towards reading attitude particularly using empirical studies or experimental research. Most literature focuses on availability of e-books and their features. This study makes a good contribution to the literature on this important aspect of research and makes available useful practical information as well.

In the digital transformation race, the older generation, called digital immigrants (generation X), encounter various obstacles. This study aims to investigate the e-reading adoption and cross-cultural differences among generation X.

This study collected survey-based data from generation X e-readers in Iraq and Pakistan (Pakistan, N = 235; Iraq, N = 251). Structural equation modeling and multigroup analysis (MGA) were used to arrive at a statistical decision regarding the hypotheses and the study’s primary objectives.

Three hypotheses (H2, H3 and H8) were supported by both data sets. However, there is positive variance based on MGA for two hypotheses (H1 and H3) where the Pakistani sample’s path coefficients are greater than the Iraqi sample’s path coefficients. In contrast, there is negative variance based on MGA for two hypotheses (H7 and H9) where the Iraqi sample’s path coefficients are greater than the Pakistani sample’s path coefficients. Finally, these distinctions are examined, along with a few potential research topics

Although there is a plethora of literature on digital immigrants and technology adoption in general, and specifically on e-reading uptake. Research on e-reading adoption in a global learning context is still lacking. Therefore, this study examines the e-reading behavior of digital immigrants from two developing countries (Iraq and Pakistan) and identifies significant cross-cultural differences in e-reading adoption.

The purpose of this paper is to test an ecological model of family, school and child links to reading outcomes in an extremely rich but developing country.

This study uses a multi-level, plausible value analysis of item response model-estimated test scores and survey responses from 4,120 children and their parents’ survey responses in 166 schools in Qatar.

The results show that family attributes (socio-economic status (SES), books at home, parent reading attitude and reading activities) are linked to children’s superior reading attitudes, reading self-concept and reading test scores. In contrast, teacher attributes and teaching methods show no significant link to reading test scores. Also, Qatari children report a poor school climate linked to lower reading self-concept and lower reading test scores.

Limitations include parent reports rather than pre-tests, testing in only one domain, and cross-sectional data rather than longitudinal data.

As family support is strongly linked to children’s reading performance, the Qatari Government can explore early childhood interventions at home (e.g. more books at home, support parent-child reading activities, etc.), especially for families with lower SES. As teacher attributes and lesson activities were not linked to children’s reading outcomes, the Qatari Government can study this issue more closely to understand this surprising result.

This is the first study to test an ecological model of Qatar’s fourth-grade children’s reading scores with a representative sample.

The development of digital technology and digital resources have influenced one’s reading habits. This paper aimed to study undergraduate students' reading in digital sphere at universities in Vietnam.

A focus group study with 31 undergraduate students of six groups at six public universities was conducted to get their perspectives on reading preference, strategies, effectiveness and psychological factors influencing reading ability.

The results confirmed that bachelor students' reading preference for document formats depended on their reading purposes. They used different reading strategies for digital and traditional reading, for instance, keyword searching, taking note, skimming, scanning, need-based reading, selective reading, comparison, evaluation and criticism. Students had faster reading speed for digital texts; however, they had better concentration and memorization in printed documents. When students have motivation, good attitudes and emotion, they could be motivated to read more.

These findings were useful in enhancing the understanding of digital reading competence and help stakeholders find out solutions to improve reading capacity of Vietnamese students in digital space.

The purpose of this paper is to present an adapted form of a qualitative research method, focus group interview, for use with small children and demonstrate its use in a small-scale study. Researchers often avoid direct study of children, and study them indirectly by asking adults. This was frequent before 1990s, but today, researchers increasingly discuss research with children rather than on children. Nevertheless, in research with young children it is not possible to use all research methods, therefore the authors modified and tested one. The additional research objectives, besides verification of methodology, were to determine the pre-school children’s attitudes to books, book-related places, reading.

The adaptation of the focus group interview involved merging the content questions of the research with a story and using a toy as the storyteller. This resembled storytelling and enabled the children to directly participate by talking to the animation toy instead of the researcher. The authors tested the method on a purposive sample of 13 pre-school children aged four and five in one public kindergarten.

Despite of the belief of some experts, who claim that focus group interview is not an appropriate method to explore habits or opinions of children, the authors found that adaptation of this method for the use with small children by means of storytelling and toy animation brings positive results because it enabled gathering data directly from the children. The content results show positive attitudes towards books and reading, differences in reading interests between boys and girls, daily exposure to books and reading, both in kindergarten and at home, and quite good knowledge of book-related places, especially libraries, somewhat less bookstores.

Since this is only the first attempt to use this adapted methodological approach, it is necessary that the method is tested on different user groups and in different circumstances to further validate its suitability for this user group. Regarding the content of the study, the results cannot be generalized due to non-probability purposive sampling.

This is the first attempt to use the adapted methodological approach for researching young children. The research may serve as a beginning and incentive for further research in this area, since only high-quality results provide good modifications and adaptations of educational programmes and activities to ensure proper development of children’s reading competences and attitudes to books and reading.

The management of children′s literature is a search for value and suitability. Effective policies in library and educational work are based firmly on knowledge of materials, and on the bibliographical and critical frame within which the materials appear and might best be selected. Boundaries, like those between quality and popular books, and between children′s and adult materials, present important challenges for selection, and implicit in this process are professional acumen and judgement. Yet also there are attitudes and systems of values, which can powerfully influence selection on grounds of morality and good taste. To guard against undue subjectivity, the knowledge frame should acknowledge the relevance of social and experiential context for all reading materials, how readers think as well as how they read, and what explicit and implicit agendas the authors have. The good professional takes all these factors on board.

The massive amount of available information and functionality of the Internet makes selective information seeking effortless. This paper aims to understand the selective exposure to information during a health decision-making task.

This study conducted an experiment with a sample of 36 students to examine the influence of prior attitude, perceived threat level and information limit on users’ selective exposure to and recall of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination information. Participants were assigned to two conditions with or without an upper limit of the number of articles to be examined, and this study collected the number of articles read, the number of articles included in the report and recall score of the articles after one day of the experiment.

This study found that (1) participants with a negative attitude were more inclined to view attitude-consistent information and recalled attitude-consistent information more accurately, while participants with a positive attitude viewed more balanced information; (2) participants perceiving higher health threat level recalled attitude-consistent information more accurately; and (3) an upper limit on the number of articles to be viewed does not have any impact on selective exposure.

The findings of this paper pinpoint the disparity of influence of positive and negative attitudes on selective exposure to and selective recall of health information, which was not previously recognized.

Vaccination campaigns should focus on reaching people with negative attitudes who are more prone to selective exposure to encourage them to seek more balanced information.

This is the first paper to explore selective exposure to COVID-19 vaccination information. This study found that people with a negative attitude and a higher level of perceived health threat are more prone to selective exposure, which was not found in previous research.

This paper aims to focus on how reading for pleasure is transmitted within the family. Using data taken from the Programme for International Student Assessment test of 2009, which dealt in depth with the reading proficiency of students, the authors show that children of parents who read for pleasure are better readers. Within the extensive research and published results on reading performance, the authors focused on the transmission of parents’ reading attitudes to their children.

In this study, the authors have opted for an approach of “difference in differences”, applied to a population that represents all 15-year-olds from five countries (Germany, Denmark, Hungary, Italy and Portugal). To support this study, the authors chose as a response variable the difference between reading performance and maths performance of each student, taking into account five plausible values for each student. The authors have several explanatory variables, among them what we call the “treatment”, which is the parents’ enthusiasm for reading.

The calculated estimations clearly indicate that there is a positive effect for four out of the five countries analysed, ranging from 4 points for Italy to 6.5 points for Germany and Portugal. As for the significance of the effect, with the exception of Hungary, the result is reliable and robust. It should also be noted that the variable that indicates the existence of a reading habit by children (daily reading for pleasure) is seen as a factor that positively affects the difference between competence in reading and mathematics in four out of the five countries analysed.

The results show positive effects on children whose parents read for pleasure, and this fact should be used to further encourage parents to promote their own reading time for pleasure. In view of the already quantified trend in international reports that adults are reading less, it seems crucial to involve educational authorities in reversing this phenomenon, knowing the impact that adult reading habits have on the reading competence of young people.