Introduction
Books have ruled the world of education, research and employment since ages, and we may not deny the fact that reading habits that our society has developed has been solely dependent on books for a long time [ CITATION Sim01 \l 1033 ]. Reading is very important and useful in one's life. It is considered the culture of people. It is known that reading is the food of mind and thought and therefore it is interesting to know that what are the kinds of reading modes that people prefer and this kind of a research will not only be helpful to determine the reading habits but will also help to promote reading and to make it more interesting. [ CITATION Sim01 \l 1033 ]
Nowadays, people do not read from books very much. They used alternative technological resources to get information such as the internet, rather than reading a book. The change in time and enhancement of technology has developed and changed the reading practices, however it may not be very easy to understand and establish the fact that, how likely are the interested readers to choose between the traditional systems of book reading or go with the modern amenities.[ CITATION Has07 \l 1033 ]
The stage is set for the most advanced reading devices to take over the old generation of paper books, and move on to internet based, fast and equipped with tools reading methods to enter the new era of learning and development. [ CITATION Sim01 \l 1033 ] In this study I will do a detailed research on the latest reading habits to understand if there has been a transition from the traditional approach that used to be followed, according to Cook, 2007, reading is an important aspect of day-to-day operations and research work , education and employement have been extremely modernized with the use of latest technology in reading, hence it is important to look at the basics and the complexities from a genuine reader’s perspective to understand the pros and cons of the traditional methods of reading[ CITATION Coo07 \l 1033 ].
In order to understand the preference as discussed above, it is important to look at the reading needs and effects from an individual’s perspective and in this research, it will be beneficial to apply a questionnaire based response method to a specific set of people, who have shown a very frequent reading behaviour, which will again be judged with the help of another set of questions to determine the reading pattern. While I have selected this topic in order to determine the reading habits, it is important to understand that there is a lot of subjectivity involved in this toic and therefore it will really make sense to ensure that the sample of the participants taking the questionnaire and survey are chosen to represent the entire population that reads frequently and this is the reason, which makes me select the participants who show very frequent and self induced reading behavior.
Hasan & Shahriza, 2007 conducted a research in order to find the reading preferences in people, the design and study involved 127 students and professors of the Kuliyyah college of information and communication technology; the selection of the participants was based on the academic preferences and there was a mix of teachers and students both, in order to understand the preference from both the perspectives.
This research was conducted on the basis of an online survey, which was rolled out to the participating teachers and the students, and the responses were received from the individuals on the basis of the questions related to their readinng preferences. [ CITATION Has07 \l 1033 ]
The results of this survey revealed this fact that there is a significant difference between the kind of reading is preferred for a particular academic program and it is an increasing trend now that websites are being percieved as an important reading source, not only students believe this but teachers also agreed with this argument. [ CITATION Has07 \l 1033 ] Now this was basically a consideration on the basis of the academic program however one of the inferences from the responses revealed that apart from the traditional reading habits, there is a new set of reading modes altogether which is replacing books, considering that this was a secondary inference it is easy to understand thaat I will be directly approaching the reading habits not from an academic perspective, but taking into account the quality readers who are self induced towards reading, our results will further give me the details that what are these modes that are being preferred today and how are they changing the reading habits.
The scope of study in this research will primarily be the kind of preference that is seen today and the reasons for transition will be out of scope and will not be a dormant part of the response method applicable for the study. With the above details I will initiate the process of research and the goal will be to find out the various modes of reading, chosen by a set of participants and analyze as to how many of them would like to use alternate channels of reading like internet, audio’s etc.
Aims
The discussion that I have done in the above sections has already made it clear that I will look at the reading habits while analysing various participants with there views related to reading. It is very important to study the detailed expectation from the research and the scope within which the research and analysis will take place. [ CITATION She09 \l 1033 ]The primary aim of this research is to understand that how many participants would like to digress from the traditional reading materials and would like to switch to modern nethods like internet, audio and PDA’a etc moreover a percentage analysis will be very helpful to understand how the preference is divided and will also provide us with an oppurtunuity to compare the other study and find out the difference between the kind of results we obtain and the ones that are delivered by them.
In another research done by Dr. Eric J simon, there is a very interesting point thaat came out, Dr Simon said “Several companies are now marketing appliances that may be suitable for use in education and textbook publishers are cautiously converting some of their print titles into ebook formats.”[ CITATION Sim01 \l 1033 ] now it is not difficult to say that the findings of Dr. Simon suggest a very similar outcome as to what I am going to study in this research, the only addition is that along with a general agreement to the kind of reading habits that people have develoed and their preferences this research will also prepare useful information about the kind of reading which is mostly preferred and the content which is accessed.
Rationale
The reading habits are basically dependent on a particular subject that interests an individual, and anything which is a part of academic curriculum or is work related cannot be a part of reading habit, hence in this research only those participants will be considered as eligible candidates to take the survey, who read not under pressure but, for leisure and interest, this will allow me to get responses from a team that is a frequent reader and understands about the various aspects of reading, hence allowing to gather information which will help us to analyze the reading habits in a better. Hence a true participant of this research will basically be an individual who read in a self imposed way.
Hypothesis
As per the previous discussions that I have had in the sections above, I have discussed that the introduction of technology may have changed the reading habits, hence with this research, the take is that there will be a few participants who will prefer untraditional options of reading and this will help to determine the kind of reading habits which are developed by people in the current scenario.
Li-Bi Shen, conducted a research in 2009 to study the effect of computer and technology on students in 2009, there were 124 questions were asked to determine the various activities that interest students online, and 88.7% students agreed to the fact that they were interested in reading online available information and their reading sources involve email, reviews and news majorly, if we compare this information with the kind of research I am conducting, it is easy to infer that we can expect responses from alternate modes of reading, and our research will further reveal if people are generally are interested in using the internet over the other traditional methods.
Looking at the researches done by [ CITATION Has07 \l 1033 ], [ CITATION She09 \l 1033 ] and [ CITATION Sim01 \l 1033 ] we can easily understand that the design of study remains the same, and all three of them have tried to know about the kind of reading habits in a certain scenario, however it is very interesting to see that in all three of them the results have given an inference that suggests an abundance of alternative reading channels, now that we have seen that three different researches had similar findings; this research is definitely an extension of the other three and will take the observations to the next level where we will not only get to know about the kind of preferences shown by the participants but will have supportive data to suggest that what is the kind of content that is being approached through these alternative channels and how is that promoting a shift towards these channels.
Works Cited
Cook, C. L. (2007). Health, Wealth and Happiness? Employers, Employability and the Knowledge Economy. Auckland: ALBANY AND PALMERSTON NORTH.
Hasan, A., & Shahriza, K. (2007). Reading habits and attitude in the digital age. Electronic Library, The, Vol. 25 Iss: 3 , 285 - 298.
Ogyek, M. C. (2009). Investigating Reading Habits and Preferences of Student Teachers at Foreign Language Departments. The International Journal of Language Society and Culture Vol 28. No.1 , 72-79.
Shen, L.-B. (2009). Computer Technology and College Students’ Reading Habits. Taiwan: Chia-Nan University of Pharmacy and Science.
Simon, E. J. (2001). Electronic Textbooks: A Pilot Study of Student E-Reading Habits. Lincoln Centre: Fordham College.
