Higher education students prefer reading digitally over paper, reading more text on social media than news sites, according to a pilot study presented Tuesday.
A team of researchers carried out a project to understand the “Reading Habits of Higher Education Students”, but among nearly 180 thousand students at Portuguese universities and polytechnics, only 1,982 students from nine universities responded.
“These results do not reflect reading habits,” emphasized Filomena Oliveira, Deputy Director General of the Directorate General of Education and Science Statistics (DGEEC), explaining that the study presented today at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation was just one of them. pilot exercise,” calling for “greater participation of higher education institutions” (HEIs) in future research.
Although it is impossible to extrapolate, more than 90% of respondents said they have a habit of reading for non-academic purposes: reading books, newspapers, magazines or online texts.
“Among the four possible reading methods, “online” texts are the most read (74%), and magazines are the least chosen (33%), said Filomena Oliveira, adding that students mainly use digital media (over 70%), paper being the most preferred option for those who want to read a book.
Social networks are where students most often look for online texts to read (81%), but they also look for information on news sites (78%).
Among social networks, the study points to Instagram as the most used (82%), followed by X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook, the DGEEC CEO added.
Half of the students said they read newspapers, but signs of the times show that the majority (61%) already prefer digital and only 7% still prefer paper.
The survey also wanted to know whether students read academic bibliography and concluded that 29% take recommendations seriously, but many (23%) ignore teachers’ suggestions and have never read any bibliography.
Barriers to reading bibliographies include lack of time as well as “the level of complexity of the texts,” Philomena Oliveira emphasized.
Institutional libraries are underutilized spaces: less than 30% of students use them, and in most cases only for work or study.
The presentation of the study was attended by the Commissioner of the National Reading Plan, Regina Duarte, the Minister of Higher Education, Pedro Nuno Teixeira, and the study coordinator and professor at the University of Coimbra, Cristina Robalo, who also criticized the study. dedication of universities to this project, highlighting only “honorable exceptions”.
In addition to the small interest shown by universities, Cristina Robalo also pointed to the effects of the pandemic and the survey theme centered on “reading habits” as reasons why data collection is difficult.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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