Digital-Age Youth’s Reading Practices,Online Activities,and Metacognitive Assumptions About Learning / Prácticas de lectura,actividades en línea y supuestos metacognitivos de los jóvenes sobre el aprendizaje en la era digital

Abstract

Quality of reading has emerged as one of the topical problems of the learning process among digital-age youth. Reading practices among youth were researched in the survey in Latvia (n = 2,169), which inquired about the frequency of reading of different types of literature, their preferred medium for reading, and cognitive reading strategies. Factor analysis identified three groups of reading strategies: those who practice deep reading, those who are pragmatically oriented, and those who prefer multimodal reading. These factors were found to correlate with the patterns of youth’s online activities and approaches to internet use in learning. Students who use the internet mostly for learning and information seeking tend to practice “deep reading.” Students who extensively use the internet for cooperation prefer “pragmatic” reading. Students who tend to rely on the internet uncritically and habitually practice multitasking prefer multimodal reading. Regression analysis showed that the main factors predicting deep reading are metacognitive attitudes favoring thoughtful approach to learning and the use of the internet for cognitive purposes and creative activities.