quantitative research study about reading comprehension

A Quantitative Study on the Impact of Online Learning on Reading Comprehension Skills

• Open Access
• First Online: 11 May 2023

Cite this chapter

You have full access to this open access chapter

• Ranya Ahmed El Haddad 12 &
• Sa’Ed Mohammad Issa Salhieh 12  

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering ((LNCE,volume 320))

6102 Accesses

This quantitative study aims to investigate the relationship between e-education and reading comprehension skills acquisition. It also examines if the previous relationship may impact students’ results in the exams. It also analyses the relationship between students’ knowledge in ICT and their perception and acceptance of online education. To collect data, A survey was sent to students to measure their perception of and satisfaction with online learning. Moreover, the marks of 105 students in an on-campus test were compared to the marks of another one they did online during the pandemic. The study agreed with the previous studies that e-learning can impact the reading skills positively and that students are getting aware of its educational benefits. On the other hand, the study did not agree with other studies about students’ knowledge of ICT and how it can positively impact their perception of online education. The study showed that although secondary students have sufficient knowledge of ICT, they do not have positive perceptions of online education.

Purpose - to investigate the relationship between e-education and acquiring reading comprehension skills, and if this may impact students’ results in the exams.

Methodology - A quantitative study in which a survey and the scores of two reading exams are analysed.

Findings - this study agreed with other studies about the positive impact of e-learning with some differences regarding students’ satisfaction with IT.

Implications - teachers can integrate interactive websites within instruction and using online games and activities can make students more attentive and less distracted.

Originality/value - although most of the studies have proved that there is a positive relationship between the quality of ICT services and students’ satisfaction with online education, this study disagrees as unlike most of the studies, the study in hand was conducted in a secondary school, not in a university.

• Reading comprehension
• Reading skills
• Online reading

You have full access to this open access chapter,  Download chapter PDF

Similar content being viewed by others

A Development of Web-Based Instruction Using Self-directed Learning to Enhance English Reading Comprehension for Undergraduate Students

Reading performance and self-regulated learning of hong kong students: what we learnt from pisa 2009.

Kit-ling Lau & Esther Sui-chu Ho

Are we leaving students behind? Self-directed learning in an ICT challenged country

Reuben Lembani, Kabwe Mulenga, … Nchimunya Chaamwe

1 Introduction

During Covid19, most of the world has switched to distance education in fear of more spread of the pandemic. This sudden change has put most of school students in confusion which had an impact on their schooling attitude, hence their exam results. In the UAE, the government has tried their best to eliminate, or at least, lessen this fear by providing teachers with trainings required to overcome these non-precedential circumstances. They also provided schools with facilities and equipment to ensure students’ easy accessibility of resources and materials needed to continue learning as smoothly as possible (Ati & Guessoum, 2010 ).

Reading comprehension is a complex skill taught online as a part of the English course delivered to secondary students. It requires connecting points to create a meaning or meanings that are partially derived from prior knowledge. It is an everyday skill that people practice all the time intentionally or unintentionally, yet at school, students should master reading comprehension skills that are developed in classrooms to understand all subjects and pass their exams (Destari, 2010 ).

1.1 Research Questions

Does on-line education have a significant relationship with students’ levels in reading comprehension?

Is there a significant difference between the scores of reading exams (on-campus and online)?

Is there a relationship between the total scores of the two exams and the reading skills mastered in each learning situation?

Do students’ level of Knowledge in ICT and the Benefits of online education have an impact on their Students’ Rating of Online Education?

2 Literature Review

2.1 conceptual framework.

Many concepts can be discussed in this section to give a comprehensive account of this topic such as: reading comprehension and online education. Reading Comprehension is the capability to read, process, and comprehend written material (Butterfuss et al., 2020 ). Online Education is the use of information technologies and communications to assist in the development and acquisition of knowledge from faraway areas (Basilaia & Kvavadze, 2020 ).

2.2 Theoretical Framework

Many theories have discussed reading comprehension, online learning and students’ perception and attitudes. However, the study in hand will discuss the Structural Theory , The Digital Native Theory , and Behaviourism.

The Structural Theory:

It is hard for L2 students to understand written texts for many reasons such as the limited vocabulary knowledge and the text structure and cohesion. Moreover, the text features can influence cognitive process that govern reading comprehension (Jake Follmer & Sperling, 2018 ) as shown in Fig. 1 .

The structural theory and reading comprehension

The Digital Native Theory:

It is believed that nowadays students are digital natives as they were born during the digital revolution (Von der Heiden et al., 2011 ), so they prefer working and gaming online.

Behaviourism:

A behaviour can be due to some external and/or internal causes (Whiteley, 1961 ). In this case, the external cause is the sudden shift to online education. On the other hand, Skinner ( 2011 ) identified Behaviourism as the philosophy of human behaviour. According to him, behaviour is not about cause-and-effect connection, but it is about a set of functional actions that take place in a certain order such as the pandemic, social distancing and e-learning.

2.3 Literature Review

The Benefits of Online Learning on Reading Comprehension: Recently, using technology has been proved successful in improving students’ levels of performance in many subjects including reading comprehension. Many studies have been conducted to identify the type of impact of online education on reading comprehension. The studies of Zidat and Djoudi ( 2010 ) and Ciampa ( 2012 ), have proved that using technology, multimedia and games increased students’ opportunities to gain more reading skills. Other studies have revealed the important role of online reading in improving the level of performance of poor readers which, consequently, improved their reading comprehension skills.

The Impact of Students’ Satisfaction on Their Levels of Performance: Many studies have confirmed the positive relationship between students’ satisfaction and behaviour, and their levels of performance in different contexts. In their studies, Sapri et al. ( 2009 ), Dhaqane and Afrah ( 2016 ) proved that teaching and learning methods used in the higher education institutes had a significant impact on students’ satisfaction which consequently improved their levels of performance. Another study. Furthermore, the study conducted on Vietnamese College students, Salehi et al. ( 2014 ) found out that students with ICT knowledge can feel comfortable learning online.

3 Methodology

This quantitative study will examine the impact of online education on students’ reading comprehension skills and the impact of their ICT knowledge on their satisfaction and behaviour towards online learning. To do so, the study will compare 10 th graders’ results in reading comprehension prior and during distance learning, and analyse the data collected via a survey that will be dispatched to the same students.

3.1 Quantitative Research Paradigms

Paradigms can be considered the ‘worldview’ or ‘sets of beliefs’ that govern the research approaches and methods and lead to answer the research questions (Cohen et al., 2018 ). It is suitable to discuss as it underpins the quantitative approach.

post-Positivism: This theory underpins the quantitative approach as it is concerned with numbers and statistics. According to Alakwe ( 2017 ), post-positivists believe that knowledge is extracted from data that is statistically analysed. This knowledge can be generalizable in similar contexts if showing the same reality observed. This theory is also concerned with decreasing human bias by testing pure data that is not yet interpreted by people.

3.2 Research Methods

There are two instruments used in this study: the first one is 105 10 th graders’ scores in 2 reading comprehension quizzes. The first one was administered at school before the pandemic and the second one was administered online during the pandemic to determine the significance in difference of means using descriptive data and ‘Paired t-test’ on SPSS.

The second tool was a survey to collect data from the same students regarding their attitudes toward the online education phenomenon, the challenges they might have faced while implementing the online education and the level of satisfaction. The survey was conducted anonymously to guarantee objectivity and privacy. The survey used Likert scale in all questions for easier collection of responses.

The survey was adopted from two published studies Footnote 1 : (Simpson, 2012 ; Al-Azawei & Lundqvist, 2015 ). Surveys are used to collect data in the quantitative approach due to the vast development in technology (Mathers et al., 2009 ).

3.3 Sampling

A sample is a part of the population chosen to represent the whole population. The population targeted is 10 th graders, and the sample is 105 female students in a private school in Ajman. There are many types of sampling, but the researcher used the convenience sampling technique due to the nature and logistics of the study during the pandemic (Acharya et al., 2013 ).

4 Result Analysis and Discussion

The study showed that there is a significant positive relationship between online education and students’ improvement in reading skill, yet their satisfaction with and perception of online education is not necessarily congruent with the ICT services provided.

4.1 Question No. 1 and Sub Questions A&B

To answer Q.1, sub-questions A&B will be answered first to be able to find out if there is an impact of online teaching on students’ levels of performance in reading comprehension skills.

Sub-Question A: Is there a significant difference between the scores of reading exams (on-campus and online)? The null hypotheses are: H0: “there is no significant difference in mean between the scores of on-campus reading test and the online reading test” while the alternative hypothesis (H1) is: “there is a significant difference in mean between the scores of on-campus reading test and the online reading test’. A ‘ paired t-test ’ was conducted to confirm or reject the null hypothesis ( H0 ) (Table 1 ).

As the significance factor is P =.732 is higher than α = .05 (P > α), it means that there is no statistically significant difference in means of the scores of the two tests, so the previous results failed statistically to reject the null hypothesis which states that “there is no significant difference in mean between the scores of on-campus’ reading test and the online reading test” with 95% confidence.

Sub Question B: Is there a relationship between the total scores of the two exams and the reading skills mastered in each learning context? A correlation test will be used to answer the question.

To determine the relationship between the previous variables, correlation tests will be used. The null hypothesis (H0) is “there is no significant relationship between reading skills acquired in each educational context and the tests conducted”. P = 0, while the alternative hypothesis (H1) is: “there is a significant relationship between reading skills acquired in each educational contexts and the tests conducted” P ≠ 0).

The following Tables 2 and 3 , show an overall statistically significant positive relationship between the acquired reading skills and the scores of reading tests whether on-campus or online. There is also a significant difference in means between the reading skills acquired online and those acquired at school in favor for the online context.

Does on-line education have a significant relationship with students’ levels in reading comprehension? The percentages of students’ attendance will be used as a reflection of the impact of e-learning as students used to join classes every day. The hypotheses of this questions are the null hypothesis (H0) is: “There is no significant relationship between the percentage of students’ attendance and their scores in the online reading test”. (p = 0), and the alternative hypothesis (H1) is: “There is a significant relationship between the percentage of students’ attendance and their scores in the online reading test” (p ≠ 0). A Pearson correlation test was used to confirm or reject the null hypothesis (Table 4 ).

Coefficient (r) is 0.346. This shows a positive relationship, and it cannot be considered a relatively strong relationship as it is not close to +1. The p value is .001 < alpha value .05. This means that the results statistically reject the null hypothesis and confirms the alternative hypothesis (H1): “Statistically, there is a significant relationship between the percentage of students’ attendance and their scores in the online reading test” Consequently, all the previous results of question 1 and the sub questions A&B prove the fact that there is an overall positive significant relationship between online education and reading comprehension skills acquired and the overall online reading tests score. The previous results conform with Zidat and Djoudi ( 2010 ) and Ciampa ( 2012 ) that the online education is beneficial in relation to reading comprehension skills acquisition.

4.2 Do Students’ Level of Knowledge in ICT and the Benefits of Online Education Have an Impact on Students’ Rating of Online Education?

A survey was conducted on n = (105) to measure students’ knowledge in and satisfaction with ICT. The null hypothesis (H0) is: “There is no significant correlation between students’ level of knowledge in ICT and their Recognition of the online education benefits on their overall rating of online education”. The alternative hypothesis (H1) is: “There is a significant correlation between students’ level of knowledge in ICT and their Recognition of the online education benefits on their overall rating of online education.”

A Linear Regression test was conducted to get answers to the previous question (Table 5 ).

The previous table shows that: P value of the predictor ICT is .432 > alpha value .05 which means that the relationship between ICT and students’ satisfaction is not significant, yet the relationship between the Benefits of online education and satisfaction is significant as P =.001 < α = .05, so there is a significant relationship between the benefits of online education and students’ satisfaction which conforms with Whiteley ( 1961 ) that their satisfaction (effect) is a result of the benefits they are aware of (cause), yet there is no significant relationship between ICT knowledge and students’ satisfaction. This agrees with Skinner ( 2011 ) as students’ negative behaviour and perception of online education is not a result of their lack of knowledge, and it can be a philosophy that has emerged due to other emotional and social factors such as the lack of socialization caused by distance learning.

5 Conclusion, Implications, and Research Significance

Conducting the previous tests, some findings can be highlighted, and some conclusions can be made accordingly.

5.1 Conclusion

The tests conducted show that:

There is a significant impact of online learning on improving the reading comprehension tests’ scores.

These results have confirmed that there is a significant impact of reading skills gained in both educational contexts and the reading tests scores in both contexts.

The study also has proven that there is a positive relation between students’ satisfaction with online education and their improvement in reading skills, yet the relationship between students’ perceptions of online education and the ICT services provided to them.

5.2 Implications and Suggestions

Implications: The hypotheses confirmed in this study can indicate that the types of teaching materials can have a great impact on students’ satisfaction and performance. Using versatile activities and different websites can decrease the boredom and monotony that students might feel in actual classrooms.

Suggestions: Using creative reading material can motivate students to study and practice, so it will be much better to use online reading comprehension resources and activities even after going back to school. Moreover, students can have the chance to study in virtual classes and practice e-reading activities even when they are back to school for at least one school class. This will enable students to enjoy reading and practicing using reading comprehension skills more effectively.

5.3 Research Significance

The results of the study agree partially with the previous studies in that domain, yet it does not agree with the results of other studies about the impact of ICT services on students’ satisfaction with online education. As most studies focused on tertiary students. This study can encourage other researchers to further investigate the context of high school students’ satisfaction and its relationship with ICT services which might reveal new dimensions that might enrich research and become new references to other scholars.

“Learner Differences in Perceived Satisfaction of an Online Learning: an Extension to the Technology Acceptance Model in an Arabic Sample” and “Student Perceptions of Quality and Satisfaction in Online Education”.

Acharya, A., Prakash, A., Saxena, P., & Nigam, A. (2013). Sampling: why and how of it? Indian Journal of Medical Specialities, 4 (2), 330–333.

Google Scholar  

Alakwe, K.O. (2017). Positivism and knowledge inquiry: from scientific method to media and communication research. Specialty Journal of Humanities and Cultural Science, 2 (3), 38–46. Accessed May 31, 2021.

Al-Azawei, A. & Lundqvist, K. (2015) Learner differences in perceived satisfaction of an online learning: an extension to the technology acceptance model in an Arabic sample. Electronic Journal of e-Learning, 13 (5), 412–430. Accessed June 6, 2021.

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants part 1. On the Horizon, 9 (5), 1–6.

Article   Google Scholar  

Aliaga, M. & Gunderson, B. (2003). Interactive statistics (2nd ed.). Pearson education, Inc.

Ati, M. & Guessoum, N. (2010). E-learning in the United Arab Emirates. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233428047_E-Learning_in_the_United_Arab_Emirates . Accessed May 25, 2021.

Boudalia, M. (2018). Effect of early exposure to technology on student satisfaction with online education. Ph.D. in Management and Technology. Walden University.

Butterfuss, R., Kim, J. & Kendeou, P. (2020). Reading comprehension. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. Accessed May 28, 2021.

Cavanaugh, C., Barbour, M. & Clark, T. (2009). Research and practice in K-12 online learning: a review of open access literature. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 10 (1).

Basilaia, G. & Kvavadze, D. (2020). Transition to online education in schools during a SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in Georgia. Pedagogical Research, 5 (4). Accessed June 20, 2022.

Ciampa, K. (2012). ICANREAD. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 45 (1), 27–59.

Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2018). Research methods in education . Routledge.

Coiro, J. (2011). Predicting reading comprehension on the internet. Journal of Literacy Research, 43 (4), 352–392.

D’Elia, E. (2005). Using the results of qualitative surveys in quantitative analysis. SSRN Electronic Journal .

Destari, D. (2010). The effectiveness of internet-based material to teach reading comprehension viewed from learning motivation. graduate degree. Sebelas Maret University Surakarta.

Dhaqane, M. & Afrah, N. (2016). Satisfaction of students and academic performance in Benadir university. Journal of Education and Practice, 7 (24), 59–63. Accessed June 5, 2021.

Evans, J., & Mathur, A. (2005). The value of online surveys. Internet Research, 15 (2), 195–219.

Fidalgo, P., Thormann, J., Kulyk, O. & Lencastre, J. (2020). Students’ perceptions on distance education: a multinational study. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 17 (1), 1–18. Accessed June 13, 2021.

Jake Follmer, D. & Sperling, R. (2018). Interactions between reader and text: contributions of cognitive processes, strategy use, and text cohesion to comprehension of expository science text. Learning and Individual Differences, 67 , 177–187. Accessed November 24, 2021.

Keegan, D. (1996). Foundations of distance education.

Mathers, N., Fox, N. & Hunn, A. (2009). Surveys and questionnaires. NIHR RDS for the East Midlands/Yorkshire & Humber. Accessed June 14, 2021.

Rezaee, A. & Sharbaf Shoar, N. (2011). Investigating the effect of using multiple sensory modes of glossing vocabulary items in a reading text with multimedia annotations. English Language Teaching, 4 (2), 25. Accessed June 4, 2021.

Ridzuan, A., Yunus, M., Abdullah, M., Bakar, M. & Ramlan, A. (2018). The relationship between students satisfaction and their academic performance among public relations degree students in UiTM Alor Gajah Melaka. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 8 (10), 874–882. Accessed June 5, 2021.

Salehi, H., Shojaee, M. & Sattar, S. (2014). Using E-learning and ICT courses in educational environment: a review. English Language Teaching, 8 (1), 63–70. Accessed June 13, 2021.

Sapri, M., Kaka, A. & Finch, E. (2009). Factors that influence student’s level of satisfaction with regards to higher educational facilities services. Malaysian Journal of Real Estate, 4 (1), 34–51. Accessed June 5, 2021.

Simpson, J. (2012). Student perceptions of quality and satisfaction in online education. Doctor of Philosophy. University of Alabama.

Skinner, B. (2011). About behaviorism. New York: Random House

Sobh, R., & Perry, C. (2006). Research design and data analysis in realism research. European Journal of marketing, 40 (11/12), 1194–1209.

Sterling, K. (2015). Student satisfaction with online learning. Ph.D. in Philosophy. University Of California, Santa Barbara.

Surahman, E. & Sulthoni. (2020). Student satisfaction toward quality of online learning in Indonesian higher education during the Covid-19 pandemic. In 6th international conference on education and technology . Accessed May 28, 2021. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9276630

van den Broek, P., Rapp, D., & Kendeou, P. (2005). Integrating memory-based and constructionist processes in accounts of reading comprehension. Discourse Processes, 39 (2–3), 299–316.

Von der Heiden, B., Fleischer, S., Richert, A., & Jeschke, S. (2011). Theory of digital natives in the light of current and future E-learning concepts. International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (IJET), 6 (2), 37.

Whiteley, C. (1961). II—behaviourism. Mind, LXX (278), 164–174.

Zidat, S., & Djoudi, M. (2010). Effects of an online learning on EFL university students’ English reading comprehension. International Review on Computers and Software, 5 (2), 186–192.

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

The British University in Dubai, Dubai, UAE

Ranya Ahmed El Haddad & Sa’Ed Mohammad Issa Salhieh

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Ranya Ahmed El Haddad or Sa’Ed Mohammad Issa Salhieh .

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

The British University in Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Khalid Al Marri

Farzana Mir

Solomon David

Aos Aljuboori

Rights and permissions

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2023 The Author(s)

About this chapter

El Haddad, R.A., Salhieh, S.M.I. (2023). A Quantitative Study on the Impact of Online Learning on Reading Comprehension Skills. In: Al Marri, K., Mir, F., David, S., Aljuboori, A. (eds) BUiD Doctoral Research Conference 2022. Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering, vol 320. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27462-6_13

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27462-6_13

Published : 11 May 2023

Publisher Name : Springer, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-031-27461-9

Online ISBN : 978-3-031-27462-6

eBook Packages : Engineering Engineering (R0)

Share this chapter

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Front Psychol

Levels of Reading Comprehension in Higher Education: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Cristina de-la-peña.

1 Departamento de Métodos de Investigación y Diagnóstico en Educación, Universidad Internacional de la Rioja, Logroño, Spain

María Jesús Luque-Rojas

2 Department of Theory and History of Education and Research Methods and Diagnosis in Education, University of Malaga, Málaga, Spain

Associated Data

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Higher education aims for university students to produce knowledge from the critical reflection of scientific texts. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a deep mental representation of written information. The objective of this research was to determine through a systematic review and meta-analysis the proportion of university students who have an optimal performance at each level of reading comprehension. Systematic review of empirical studies has been limited from 2010 to March 2021 using the Web of Science, Scopus, Medline, and PsycINFO databases. Two reviewers performed data extraction independently. A random-effects model of proportions was used for the meta-analysis and heterogeneity was assessed with I 2 . To analyze the influence of moderating variables, meta-regression was used and two ways were used to study publication bias. Seven articles were identified with a total sample of the seven of 1,044. The proportion of students at the literal level was 56% (95% CI = 39–72%, I 2 = 96.3%), inferential level 33% (95% CI = 19–46%, I 2 = 95.2%), critical level 22% (95% CI = 9–35%, I 2 = 99.04%), and organizational level 22% (95% CI = 6–37%, I 2 = 99.67%). Comparing reading comprehension levels, there is a significant higher proportion of university students who have an optimal level of literal compared to the rest of the reading comprehension levels. The results have to be interpreted with caution but are a guide for future research.

Introduction

Reading comprehension allows the integration of knowledge that facilitates training processes and successful coping with academic and personal situations. In higher education, this reading comprehension has to provide students with autonomy to self-direct their academic-professional learning and provide critical thinking in favor of community service ( UNESCO, 2009 ). However, research in recent years ( Bharuthram, 2012 ; Afflerbach et al., 2015 ) indicates that a part of university students are not prepared to successfully deal with academic texts or they have reading difficulties ( Smagorinsky, 2001 ; Cox et al., 2014 ), which may limit academic training focused on written texts. This work aims to review the level of reading comprehension provided by studies carried out in different countries, considering the heterogeneity of existing educational models.

The level of reading comprehension refers to the type of mental representation that is made of the written text. The reader builds a mental model in which he can integrate explicit and implicit data from the text, experiences, and previous knowledge ( Kucer, 2016 ; van den Broek et al., 2016 ). Within the framework of the construction-integration model ( Kintsch and van Dijk, 1978 ; Kintsch, 1998 ), the most accepted model of reading comprehension, processing levels are differentiated, specifically: A superficial level that identifies or memorizes data forming the basis of the text and a deep level in which the text situation model is elaborated integrating previous experiences and knowledge. At these levels of processing, the cognitive strategies used, are different according to the domain-learning model ( Alexander, 2004 ) from basic coding to a transformation of the text. In the scientific literature, there are investigations ( Yussof et al., 2013 ; Ulum, 2016 ) that also identify levels of reading comprehension ranging from a literal level of identification of ideas to an inferential and critical level that require the elaboration of inferences and the data transformation.

Studies focused on higher education ( Barletta et al., 2005 ; Yáñez Botello, 2013 ) show that university students are at a literal or basic level of understanding, they often have difficulties in making inferences and recognizing the macrostructure of the written text, so they would not develop a model of a situation of the text. These scientific results are in the same direction as the research on reading comprehension in the mother tongue in the university population. Bharuthram (2012) indicates that university students do not access or develop effective strategies for reading comprehension, such as the capacity for abstraction and synthesis-analysis. Later, Livingston et al. (2015) find that first-year education students present limited reading strategies and difficulties in understanding written texts. Ntereke and Ramoroka (2017) found that only 12.4% of students perform well in a reading comprehension task, 34.3% presenting a low level of execution in the task.

Factors related to the level of understanding of written information are the mode of presentation of the text (printed vs. digital), the type of metacognitive strategies used (planning, making inferences, inhibition, monitoring, etc.), the type of text and difficulties (novel vs. a science passage), the mode of writing (text vs. multimodal), the type of reading comprehension task, and the diversity of the student. For example, several studies ( Tuncer and Bahadir, 2014 ; Trakhman et al., 2019 ; Kazazoglu, 2020 ) indicate that reading is more efficient with better performance in reading comprehension tests in printed texts compared to the same text in digital and according to Spencer (2006) college students prefer to read in print vs. digital texts. In reading the written text, metacognitive strategies are involved ( Amril et al., 2019 ) but studies ( Channa et al., 2018 ) seem to indicate that students do not use them for reading comprehension, specifically; Korotaeva (2012) finds that only 7% of students use them. Concerning the type of text and difficulties, for Wolfe and Woodwyk (2010) , expository texts benefit more from the construction of a situational model of the text than narrative texts, although Feng (2011) finds that expository texts are more difficult to read than narrative texts. Regarding the modality of the text, Mayer (2009) and Guo et al. (2020) indicate that multimodal texts that incorporate images into the text positively improve reading comprehension. In a study of Kobayashi (2002) using open questions, close, and multiple-choice shows that the type and format of the reading comprehension assessment test significantly influence student performance and that more structured tests help to better differentiate the good ones and the poor ones in reading comprehension. Finally, about student diversity, studies link reading comprehension with the interest and intrinsic motivation of university students ( Cartwright et al., 2019 ; Dewi et al., 2020 ), with gender ( Saracaloglu and Karasakaloglu, 2011 ), finding that women present a better level of reading comprehension than men and with knowledge related to reading ( Perfetti et al., 1987 ). In this research, it was controlled that all were printed and unimodal texts, that is, only text. This is essential because the cognitive processes involved in reading comprehension can vary with these factors ( Butcher and Kintsch, 2003 ; Xu et al., 2020 ).

The Present Study

Regardless of the educational context, in any university discipline, preparing essays or developing arguments are formative tasks that require a deep level of reading comprehension (inferences and transformation of information) that allows the elaboration of a situation model, and not having this level can lead to limited formative learning. Therefore, the objective of this research was to know the state of reading comprehension levels in higher education; specifically, the proportion of university students who perform optimally at each level of reading comprehension. It is important to note that there is not much information about the different levels in university students and that it is the only meta-analytic review that explores different levels of reading comprehension in this educational stage. This is a relevant issue because the university system requires that students produce knowledge from the critical reflection of scientific texts, preparing them for innovation, employability, and coexistence in society.

Materials and Methods

Eligibility criteria: inclusion and exclusion.

Empirical studies written in Spanish or English are selected that analyze the reading comprehension level in university students.

The exclusion criteria are as follows: (a) book chapters or review books or publications; (b) articles in other languages; (c) studies of lower educational levels; (d) articles that do not identify the age of the sample; (e) second language studies; (f) students with learning difficulties or other disorders; (g) publications that do not indicate the level of reading comprehension; (h) studies that relate reading competence with other variables but do not report reading comprehension levels; (i) pre-post program application work; (j) studies with experimental and control groups; (k) articles comparing pre-university stages or adults; (l) publications that use multi-texts; (m) studies that use some type of technology (computer, hypertext, web, psychophysiological, online questionnaire, etc.); and (n) studies unrelated to the subject of interest.

Only those publications that meet the following criteria are included as: (a) be empirical research (article, thesis, final degree/master’s degree, or conference proceedings book); (b) university stage; (c) include data or some measure on the level of reading comprehension that allows calculating the effect size; (d) written in English or Spanish; (e) reading comprehension in the first language or mother tongue; and (f) the temporary period from January 2010 to March 2021.

Search Strategies

A three-step procedure is used to select the studies included in the meta-analysis. In the first step, a review of research and empirical articles in English and Spanish from January 2010 to March 2021. The search is carried out in online databases of languages in Spanish and English, such as Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, Medline, and PsycINFO, to review empirical productions that analyze the level of reading comprehension in university students. In the second step, the following terms (titles, abstracts, keywords, and full text) are used to select the articles: Reading comprehension and higher education, university students, in Spanish and English, combined with the Boolean operators AND and OR. In the last step, secondary sources, such as the Google search engine, Theseus, and references in publications, are explored.

The search reports 4,294 publications (articles, theses, and conference proceedings books) in the databases and eight records of secondary references, specifically, 1989 from WoS, 2001 from Scopus, 42 from Medline, and 262 of PsycINFO. Of the total (4,294), 1,568 are eliminated due to duplications, leaving 2,734 valid records. Next, titles and abstracts are reviewed and 2,659 are excluded because they do not meet the inclusion criteria. The sample of 75 publications is reduced to 40 articles, excluding 35 because the full text cannot be accessed (the authors were contacted but did not respond), the full text did not show specific statistical data, they used online questionnaires or computerized presentations of the text. Finally, seven articles in Spanish were selected for use in the meta-analysis of the reading comprehension level of university students. Data additional to those included in the articles were not requested from the selected authors.

The PRISMA-P guidelines ( Moher et al., 2015 ) are followed to perform the meta-analysis and the flow chart for the selection of publications relevant to the subject is exposed (Figure 1) .

Flow diagram for the selection of articles.

Encoding Procedure

This research complies with what is established in the manual of systematic reviews ( Higgins and Green, 2008 ) in which clear objectives, specific search terms, and eligibility criteria for previously defined works are established. Two independent coders, reaching a 100% agreement, carry out the study search process. Subsequently, the research is codified, for this, a coding protocol is used as a guide to help resolve the ambiguities between the coders; the proposals are reflected and discussed and discrepancies are resolved, reaching a degree of agreement between the two coders of 97%.

For all studies, the reference, country, research objective, sample size, age and gender, reading comprehension test, other tests, and reading comprehension results were coded in percentages. All this information was later systematized in Table 1 .

Results of the empirical studies included in the meta-analysis.

In relation to the type of reading comprehension level, it was coded based on the levels of the scientific literature as follows: 1 = literal; 2 = inferential; 3 = critical; and 4 = organizational.

Regarding the possible moderating variables, it was coded if the investigations used a standardized reading comprehension measure (value = 1) or non-standardized (value = 0). This research considers the standardized measures of reading comprehension as the non-standardized measures created by the researchers themselves in their studies or questionnaires by other authors. By the type of evaluation test, we encode between multiple-choice (value = 0) or multiple-choices plus open question (value = 1). By type of text, we encode between argumentative (value = 1) or unknown (value = 0). By the type of career, we encode social sciences (value = 1) or other careers (health sciences; value = 0). Moreover, by the type of publication, we encode between article (value = 1) or doctoral thesis (value = 0).

Effect Size and Statistical Analysis

This descriptive study with a sample k = 7 and a population of 1,044 university students used a continuous variable and the proportions were used as the effect size to analyze the proportion of students who had an optimal performance at each level of reading comprehension. As for the percentages of each level of reading comprehension of the sample, they were transformed into absolute frequencies. A random-effects model ( Borenstein et al., 2009 ) was used as the effect size. These random-effects models have a greater capacity to generalize the conclusions and allow estimating the effects of different sources of variation (moderating variables). The DerSimonian and Laird method ( Egger et al., 2001 ) was used, calculating raw proportion and for each proportion its standard error, value of p and 95% confidence interval (CI).

To examine sampling variability, Cochran’s Q test (to test the null hypothesis of homogeneity between studies) and I 2 (proportion of variability) were used. According to Higgins et al. (2003) , if I 2 reaches 25%, it is considered low, if it reaches 50% and if it exceeds 75% it is considered high. A meta-regression analysis was used to investigate the effect of the moderator variables (type of measure, type of evaluation test, type of text, type of career, and type of publication) in each level of reading comprehension of the sample studies. For each moderating variable, all the necessary statistics were calculated (estimate, standard error, CI, Q , and I 2 ).

To compare the effect sizes of each level (literal, inferential, critical, and organizational) of reading comprehension, the chi-square test for the proportion recommended by Campbell (2007) was used.

Finally, to analyze publication bias, this study uses two ways: Rosenthal’s fail-safe number and regression test. Rosenthal’s fail-safe number shows the number of missing studies with null effects that would make the previous correlations insignificant ( Borenstein et al., 2009 ). When the values are large there is no bias. In the regression test, when the regression is not significant, there is no bias.

The software used to classify and encode data and produce descriptive statistics was with Microsoft Excel and the Jamovi version 1.6 free software was used to perform the meta-analysis.

The results of the meta-analysis are presented in three parts: the general descriptive analysis of the included studies; the meta-analytic analysis with the effect size, heterogeneity, moderating variables, and comparison of effect sizes; and the study of publication bias.

Overview of Included Studies

The search carried out of the scientific literature related to the subject published from 2010 to March 2021 generated a small number of publications, because it was limited to the higher education stage and required clear statistical data on reading comprehension.

Table 1 presents all the publications reviewed in this meta-analysis with a total of students evaluated in the reviewed works that amounts to 1,044, with the smallest sample size of 30 ( Del Pino-Yépez et al., 2019 ) and the largest with 570 ( Guevara Benítez et al., 2014 ). Regarding gender, 72% women and 28% men were included. Most of the sample comes from university degrees in social sciences, such as psychology and education (71.42%) followed by health sciences (14.28%) engineering and a publication (14.28%) that does not indicate origin. These publications selected according to the inclusion criteria for the meta-analysis come from more countries with a variety of educational systems, but all from South America. Specifically, the countries that have more studies are Mexico (28.57%) and Colombia, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador with 14.28% each, respectively. The years in which they were published are 2.57% in 2018 and 2016 and 14.28% in 2019, 2014, and 2013.

A total of 57% of the studies analyze four levels of reading comprehension (literal, inferential, critical, and organizational) and 43% investigate three levels of reading comprehension (literal, inferential, and critical). Based on the moderating variables, 57% of the studies use standardized reading comprehension measures and 43% non-standardized measures. According to the evaluation test used, 29% use multiple-choice questions and 71% combine multiple-choice questions plus open questions. 43% use an argumentative text and 57% other types of texts (not indicated in studies). By type of career, 71% are students of social sciences and 29% of other different careers, such as engineering or health sciences. In addition, 71% are articles and 29% with research works (thesis and degree works).

Table 2 shows the reading comprehension assessment instruments used by the authors of the empirical research integrated into the meta-analysis.

Reading comprehension assessment tests used in higher education.

Meta-Analytic Analysis of the Level of Reading Comprehension

The literal level presents a mean proportion effect size of 56% (95% CI = 39–72%; Figure 2 ). The variability between the different samples of the literal level of reading comprehension was significant ( Q = 162.066, p < 0.001; I 2 = 96.3%). No moderating variable used in this research had a significant contribution to heterogeneity: type of measurement ( p = 0.520), type of test ( p = 0.114), type of text ( p = 0.520), type of career ( p = 0.235), and type of publication ( p = 0.585). The high variability is explained by other factors not considered in this work, such as the characteristics of the students (cognitive abilities) or other issues.

Forest plot of literal level.

The inferential level presents a mean proportion effect size of 33% (95% CI = 19–46%; Figure 3 ). The variability between the different samples of the inferential level of reading comprehension was significant ( Q = 125.123, p < 0.001; I 2 = 95.2%). The type of measure ( p = 0.011) and the type of text ( p = 0.011) had a significant contribution to heterogeneity. The rest of the variables had no significance: type of test ( p = 0.214), type of career ( p = 0.449), and type of publication ( p = 0.218). According to the type of measure, the proportion of students who have an optimal level in inferential administering a standardized test is 28.7% less than when a non-standardized test is administered. The type of measure reduces variability by 2.57% and explains the differences between the results of the studies at the inferential level. According to the type of text, the proportion of students who have an optimal level in inferential using an argumentative text is 28.7% less than when using another type of text. The type of text reduces the variability by 2.57% and explains the differences between the results of the studies at the inferential level.

Forest plot of inferential level.

The critical level has a mean effect size of the proportion of 22% (95% CI = 9–35%; Figure 4 ). The variability between the different samples of the critical level of reading comprehension was significant ( Q = 627.044, p < 0.001; I 2 = 99.04%). No moderating variable used in this research had a significant contribution to heterogeneity: type of measurement ( p = 0.575), type of test ( p = 0.691), type of text ( p = 0.575), type of career ( p = 0.699), and type of publication ( p = 0.293). The high variability is explained by other factors not considered in this work, such as the characteristics of the students (cognitive abilities).

Forest plot of critical level.

The organizational level presents a mean effect size of the proportion of 22% (95% CI = 6–37%; Figure 5 ). The variability between the different samples of the organizational level of reading comprehension was significant ( Q = 1799.366, p < 0.001; I 2 = 99.67%). The type of test made a significant contribution to heterogeneity ( p = 0.289). The other moderating variables were not significant in this research: type of measurement ( p = 0.289), type of text ( p = 0.289), type of career ( p = 0.361), and type of publication ( p = 0.371). Depending on the type of test, the proportion of students who have an optimal level in organizational with multiple-choices tests plus open questions is 37% higher than while using only multiple-choice tests. The type of text reduces the variability by 0.27% and explains the differences between the results of the studies at the organizational level.

Forest plot of organizational level.

Table 3 shows the difference between the estimated effect sizes and the significance. There is a larger proportion of students having an optimal level of reading comprehension at the literal level compared to the inferential, critical, and organizational level; an optimal level of reading comprehension at the inferential level vs. the critical and organizational level.

Results of effect size comparison.

Analysis of Publication Bias

This research uses two ways to verify the existence of bias independently of the sample size. Table 4 shows the results and there is no publication bias at any level of reading comprehension.

Publication bias results.

This research used a systematic literature search and meta-analysis to provide estimates of the number of cases of university students who have an optimal level in the different levels of reading comprehension. All the information available on the subject at the international level was analyzed using international databases in English and Spanish, but the potentially relevant publications were limited. Only seven Spanish language studies were identified internationally. In these seven studies, the optimal performance at each level of reading comprehension varied, finding heterogeneity associated with the very high estimates, which indicates that the summary estimates have to be interpreted with caution and in the context of the sample and the variables used in this meta-analysis.

In this research, the effects of the type of measure, type of test, type of text, type of career, and type of publication have been analyzed. Due to the limited information in the publications, it was not possible to assess the effect of any more moderating variables.

We found that some factors significantly influence heterogeneity according to the level of reading comprehension considered. The type of measure influenced the optimal performance of students in the inferential level of reading comprehension; specifically, the proportion of students who have an optimal level in inferential worsens if the test is standardized. Several studies ( Pike, 1996 ; Koretz, 2002 ) identify differences between standardized and non-standardized measures in reading comprehension and a favor of non-standardized measures developed by the researchers ( Pyle et al., 2017 ). The ability to generate inferences of each individual may difficult to standardize because each person differently identifies the relationship between the parts of the text and integrates it with their previous knowledge ( Oakhill, 1982 ; Cain et al., 2004 ). This mental representation of the meaning of the text is necessary to create a model of the situation and a deep understanding ( McNamara and Magliano, 2009 ; van den Broek and Espin, 2012 ).

The type of test was significant for the organizational level of reading comprehension. The proportion of students who have an optimal level in organizational improves if the reading comprehension assessment test is multiple-choice plus open questions. The organizational level requires the reordering of written information through analysis and synthesis processes ( Guevara Benítez et al., 2014 ); therefore, it constitutes a production task that is better reflected in open questions than in reproduction questions as multiple choice ( Dinsmore and Alexander, 2015 ). McNamara and Kintsch (1996) identify that open tasks require an effort to make inferences related to previous knowledge and multidisciplinary knowledge. Important is to indicate that different evaluation test formats can measure different aspects of reading comprehension ( Zheng et al., 2007 ).

The type of text significantly influenced the inferential level of reading comprehension. The proportion of students who have an optimal level in inferential decreases with an argumentative text. The expectations created before an argumentative text made it difficult to generate inferences and, therefore, the construction of the meaning of the text. This result is in the opposite direction to the study by Diakidoy et al. (2011) who find that the refutation text, such as the argumentative one, facilitates the elaboration of inferences compared to other types of texts. It is possible that the argumentative text, given its dialogical nature of arguments and counterarguments, with a subject unknown by the students, has determined the decrease of inferences based on their scarce previous knowledge of the subject, needing help to elaborate the structure of the text read ( Reznitskaya et al., 2007 ). It should be pointed out that in meta-analysis studies, 43% use argumentative texts. Knowing the type of the text is relevant for generating inferences, for instance, according to Baretta et al. (2009) the different types of text are processed differently in the brain generating more or fewer inferences; specifically, using the N400 component, they find that expository texts generate more inferences from the text read.

For the type of career and the type of publication, no significance was found at any level of reading comprehension in this sample. This seems to indicate that university students have the same level of performance in tasks of literal, critical inferential, and organizational understanding regardless of whether they are studying social sciences, health sciences, or engineering. Nor does the type of publication affect the state of the different levels of reading comprehension in higher education.

The remaining high heterogeneity at all levels of reading comprehension was not captured in this review, indicating that there are other factors, such as student characteristics, gender, or other issues, that are moderating and explaining the variability at the literal, inferential, critical, and organizational reading comprehension in university students.

To the comparison between the different levels of reading comprehension, the literal level has a significantly higher proportion of students with an optimal level than the inferential, critical, and organizational levels. The inferential level has a significantly higher proportion of students with an optimal level than the critical and organizational levels. This corresponds with data from other investigations ( Márquez et al., 2016 ; Del Pino-Yépez et al., 2019 ) that indicate that the literal level is where university students execute with more successes, being more difficult and with less success at the inferential, organizational, and critical levels. This indicates that university students of this sample do not generate a coherent situation model that provides them with a global mental representation of the read text according to the model of Kintsch (1998) , but rather they make a literal analysis of the explicit content of the read text. This level of understanding can lead to less desirable results in educational terms ( Dinsmore and Alexander, 2015 ).

The educational implications of this meta-analysis in this sample are aimed at making universities aware of the state of reading comprehension levels possessed by university students and designing strategies (courses and workshops) to optimize it by improving the training and employability of students. Some proposals can be directed to the use of reflection tasks, integration of information, graphic organizers, evaluation, interpretation, nor the use of paraphrasing ( Rahmani, 2011 ). Some studies ( Hong-Nam and Leavell, 2011 ; Parr and Woloshyn, 2013 ) demonstrate the effectiveness of instructional courses in improving performance in reading comprehension and metacognitive strategies. In addition, it is necessary to design reading comprehension assessment tests in higher education that are balanced, validated, and reliable, allowing to have data for the different levels of reading comprehension.

Limitations and Conclusion

This meta-analysis can be used as a starting point to report on reading comprehension levels in higher education, but the results should be interpreted with caution and in the context of the study sample and variables. Publications without sufficient data and inaccessible articles, with a sample of seven studies, may have limited the international perspective. The interest in studying reading comprehension in the mother tongue, using only unimodal texts, without the influence of technology and with English and Spanish has also limited the review. The limited amount of data in the studies has limited meta-regression.

This review is a guide to direct future research, broadening the study focus on the level of reading comprehension using digital technology, experimental designs, second languages, and investigations that relate reading comprehension with other factors (gender, cognitive abilities, etc.) that can explain the heterogeneity in the different levels of reading comprehension. The possibility of developing a comprehensive reading comprehension assessment test in higher education could also be explored.

This review contributes to the scientific literature in several ways. In the first place, this meta-analytic review is the only one that analyzes the proportion of university students who have an optimal performance in the different levels of reading comprehension. This review is made with international publications and this topic is mostly investigated in Latin America. Second, optimal performance can be improved at all levels of reading comprehension, fundamentally inferential, critical, and organizational. The literal level is significantly the level of reading comprehension with the highest proportion of optimal performance in university students. Third, the students in this sample have optimal performance at the inferential level when they are non-argumentative texts and non-standardized measures, and, in the analyzed works, there is optimal performance at the organizational level when multiple-choice questions plus open questions are used.

The current research is linked to the research project “Study of reading comprehension in higher education” of Asociación Educar para el Desarrollo Humano from Argentina.

Data Availability Statement

Author contributions.

Cd-l-P had the idea for the article and analyzed the data. ML-R searched the data. Cd-l-P and ML-R selected the data and contributed to the valuable comments and manuscript writing. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

The handling editor declared a shared affiliation though no other collaboration with one of the authors ML-R at the time of the review.

Publisher’s Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Funding. This paper was funded by the Universidad Internacional de la Rioja and Universidad de Málaga.

• Afflerbach P., Cho B.-Y., Kim J.-Y. (2015). Conceptualizing and assessing higher-order thinking in reading . Theory Pract. 54 , 203–212. 10.1080/00405841.2015.1044367 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Alexander P. A. (2004). “ A model of domain learning: reinterpreting expertise as a multidimensional, multistage process ,” in Motivation, Emotion, and Cognition: Integrative Perspectives on Intellectual Functioning and Development. eds. Dai D. Y., Sternberg R. J. (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum; ), 273–298. [ Google Scholar ]
• Amril A., Hasanuddin W. S., Atmazaki (2019). The contributions of reading strategies and reading frequencies toward students’ reading comprehension skill in higher education . Int. J. Eng. Adv. Technol. (IJEAT) 8 , 593–595. 10.35940/ijeat.F1105.0986S319 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Baretta L., Braga Tomitch L. M., MacNair N., Kwan Lim V., Waldie K. E. (2009). Inference making while reading narrative and expository texts: an ERP study . Psychol. Neurosci. 2 , 137–145. 10.3922/j.psns.2009.2.005 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Barletta M., Bovea V., Delgado P., Del Villar L., Lozano A., May O., et al.. (2005). Comprensión y Competencias Lectoras en Estudiantes Universitarios. Barranquilla: Uninorte. [ Google Scholar ]
• Bharuthram S. (2012). Making a case for the teaching of reading across the curriculum in higher education . S. Afr. J. Educ. 32 , 205–214. 10.15700/saje.v32n2a557 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Borenstein M., Hedges L. V., Higgins J. P. T., Rothstein H. R. (2009). Introduction to Meta-Analysis. United Kingdom: John Wiley and Sons, Ltd, 45–49. [ Google Scholar ]
• Butcher K. R., Kintsch W. (2003). “ Text comprehension and discourse processing ,” in Handbook of Psychology: Experimental Psychology. 2nd Edn . Vol . 4 . eds. Healy A. F., Proctor R. W., Weiner I. B. (New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.), 575–595. [ Google Scholar ]
• Cain K., Oakhill J., Bryant P. (2004). Children’s reading comprehension ability: concurrent prediction by working memory, verbal ability, and component skills . J. Educ. Psychol. 96 , 31–42. 10.1037/0022-0663.96.1.31 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Campbell I. (2007). Chi-squared and Fisher-Irwin tests of two-by-two tables with small sample recommendations . Stat. Med. 26 , 3661–3675. 10.1002/sim.2832, PMID: [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Cartwright K. B., Lee S. A., Barber A. T., DeWyngaert L. U., Lane A. B., Singleton T. (2019). Contributions of executive function and cognitive intrinsic motivation to university students’ reading comprehension . Read. Res. Q. 55 , 345–369. 10.1002/rrq.273 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Channa M. A., Abassi A. M., John S., Sahito J. K. M. (2018). Reading comprehension and metacognitive strategies in first-year engineering university students in Pakistan . Int. J. Engl. Ling. 8 , 78–87. 10.5539/ijel.v8n6p78 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Cox S. R., Friesner D. L., Khayum M. (2014). Do Reading skills courses help underprepared readers achieve academic success in college? J. College Reading and Learn. 33 , 170–196. 10.1080/10790195.2003.10850147 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Del Pino-Yépez G. M., Saltos-Rodríguez L. J., Moreira-Aguayo P. Y. (2019). Estrategias didácticas para el afianzamiento de la comprensión lectora en estudiantes universitarios . Revista científica Dominio de las Ciencias 5 , 171–187. 10.23857/dc.v5i1.1038 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Dewi R. S., Fahrurrozi, Hasanah U., Wahyudi A. (2020). Reading interest and Reading comprehension: a correlational study in Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University, Jakarta . Talent Dev. Excell. 12 , 241–250. [ Google Scholar ]
• Diakidoy I. N., Mouskounti T., Ioannides C. (2011). Comprehension and learning from refutation and expository texts . Read. Res. Q. 46 , 22–38. 10.1598/RRQ.46.1.2 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Dinsmore D. J., Alexander P. A. (2015). A multidimensional investigation of deep-level and surface-level processing . J. Exp. Educ. 84 , 213–244. 10.1080/00220973.2014.979126 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Egger M., Smith D., Altmand D. G. (2001). Systematic Reviews in Health Care: Meta-Analysis in Context. London: BMJ Publishing Group. [ Google Scholar ]
• Feng L. (2011). A short analysis of the text variables affecting reading and testing reading . Stud. Lit. Lang. 2 , 44–49. [ Google Scholar ]
• Figueroa Romero R. L., Castañeda Sánchez W., Tamay Carranza I. A. (2016). Nivel de comprensión lectora en los estudiantes del primer ciclo de la Universidad San Pedro, filial Caraz, 2016. (Trabajo de investigación, Universidad San Pedro). Repositorio Institucional USP. Available at: http://repositorio.usanpedro.edu.pe/bitstream/handle/USANPEDRO/305/PI1640418.pdf?sequence=1andisAllowed=y (Accessed February 15, 2021).
• Guevara Benítez Y., Guerra García J., Delgado Sánchez U., Flores Rubí C. (2014). Evaluación de distintos niveles de comprensión lectora en estudiantes mexicanos de Psicología . Acta Colombiana de Psicología 17 , 113–121. 10.14718/ACP.2014.17.2.12 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Guo D., Zhang S., Wright K. L., McTigue E. M. (2020). Do you get the picture? A meta-analysis of the effect of graphics on reading comprehension . AERA Open 6 , 1–20. 10.1177/2332858420901696 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Higgins J. P., Green S. (2008). Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions. The Cochrane Collaboration. [ Google Scholar ]
• Higgins J. P., Thompson S. G., Deeks J. J., Altman D. G. (2003). Measuring inconsistency in meta-analyses . BMJ 327 , 327–557. 10.1136/bmj.327.7414.557, PMID: [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hong-Nam K., Leavell A. G. (2011). Reading strategy instruction, metacognitive awareness, and self-perception of striving college developmental readers . J. College Literacy Learn. 37 , 3–17. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kazazoglu S. (2020). Is printed text the best choice? A mixed-method case study on reading comprehension . J. Lang. Linguistic Stud. 16 , 458–473. 10.17263/jlls.712879 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kintsch W. (1998). Comprehension: A Paradigm for Cognition. New York: Cambridge University Press. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kintsch W., van Dijk T. A. (1978). Toward a model of text comprehension and production . Psychol. Rev. 85 , 363–394. 10.1037/0033-295X.85.5.363 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kobayashi M. (2002). Method effects on reading comprehension test performance: test organization and response format . Lang. Test. 19 , 193–220. 10.1191/0265532202lt227oa [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Koretz D. (2002). Limitations in the use of achievement tests as measures of educators’ productivity . J. Hum. Resour. 37 , 752–777. 10.2307/3069616 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Korotaeva I. V. (2012). Metacognitive strategies in reading comprehension of education majors . Procedural-Social and Behav. Sci. 69 , 1895–1900. 10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.12.143 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kucer S. B. (2016). Accuracy, miscues, and the comprehension of complex literary and scientific texts . Read. Psychol. 37 , 1076–1095. 10.1080/02702711.2016.1159632 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Livingston C., Klopper B., Cox S., Uys C. (2015). The impact of an academic reading program in the bachelor of education (intermediate and senior phase) degree . Read. Writ. 6 , 1–11. 10.4102/rw.v6i1.66 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Márquez H., Díaz C., Muñoz R., Fuentes R. (2016). Evaluación de los niveles de comprensión lectora en estudiantes universitarios pertenecientes a las carreras de Kinesiología y Nutrición y Dietética de la Universidad Andrés Bello, Concepción . Revista de Educación en Ciencias de la Salud 13 , 154–160. [ Google Scholar ]
• Mayer R. E. (ed.) (2009). “ Modality principle ,” in Multimedia Learning. United States: Cambridge University Press, 200–2020. [ Google Scholar ]
• McNamara D. S., Kintsch W. (1996). Learning from texts: effects of prior knowledge and text coherence . Discourse Process 22 , 247–288. 10.1080/01638539609544975 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• McNamara D. S., Magliano J. (2009). “ Toward a comprehensive model of comprehension ,” in The psychology of learning and motivation. ed. Ross E. B. (New York: Elsevier; ), 297–384. [ Google Scholar ]
• Moher D., Shamseer L., Clarke M., Ghersi D., Liberati A., Petticrew M., et al.. (2015). Preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analysis protocols (PRISMA-P) 2015 statement . Syst. Rev. 4 :1. 10.1186/2046-4053-4-1, PMID: [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ntereke B. B., Ramoroka B. T. (2017). Reading competency of first-year undergraduate students at the University of Botswana: a case study . Read. Writ. 8 :a123. 10.4102/rw.v8i1.123 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Oakhill J. (1982). Constructive processes in skilled and less skilled comprehenders’ memory for sentences . Br. J. Psychol. 73 , 13–20. 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1982.tb01785.x, PMID: [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Parr C., Woloshyn V. (2013). Reading comprehension strategy instruction in a first-year course: an instructor’s self-study . Can. J. Scholarship Teach. Learn. 4 :3. 10.5206/cjsotl-rcacea.2013.2.3 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Perfetti C. A., Beck I., Bell L. C., Hughes C. (1987). Phonemic knowledge and learning to read are reciprocal: a longitudinal study of first-grade children . Merrill-Palmer Q. 33 , 283–319. [ Google Scholar ]
• Pike G. R. (1996). Limitations of using students’ self-reports of academic development as proxies for traditional achievement measures . Res. High. Educ. 37 , 89–114. 10.1007/BF01680043 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pyle N., Vasquez A. C., Lignugaris B., Gillam S. L., Reutzel D. R., Olszewski A., et al.. (2017). Effects of expository text structure interventions on comprehension: a meta-analysis . Read. Res. Q. 52 , 469–501. 10.1002/rrq.179 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rahmani M. (2011). Effects of note-taking training on reading comprehension and recall . Reading Matrix: An Int. Online J. 11 , 116–126. [ Google Scholar ]
• Reznitskaya A., Anderson R., Kuo L. J. (2007). Teaching and learning argumentation . Elem. Sch. J. 107 , 449–472. 10.1086/518623 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sáez Sánchez B. K. (2018). La comprensión lectora en jóvenes universitarios de una escuela formadora de docentes . Revista Electrónica Científica de Investigación Educativa 4 , 609–618. [ Google Scholar ]
• Sanabria Mantilla T. R. (2018). Relación entre comprensión lectora y rendimiento académico en estudiantes de primer año de Psicología de la Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana. (Trabajo de grado, Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana). Repositorio Institucional UPB. Available at: https://repository.upb.edu.co/bitstream/handle/20.500.11912/5443/digital_36863.pdf?sequence=1andisAllowed=y (Accessed February 15, 2021).
• Saracaloglu A. S., Karasakaloglu N. (2011). An investigation of prospective teachers’ reading comprehension levels and study and learning strategies related to some variables . Egit. ve Bilim 36 , 98–115. [ Google Scholar ]
• Smagorinsky P. (2001). If meaning is constructed, what is it made from? Toward a cultural theory of reading . Rev. Educ. Res. 71 , 133–169. 10.3102/00346543071001133 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Spencer C. (2006). Research on learners’ preferences for reading from a printed text or a computer screen . J. Dist. Educ. 21 , 33–50. [ Google Scholar ]
• Trakhman L. M. S., Alexander P., Berkowitz L. E. (2019). Effects of processing time on comprehension and calibration in print and digital mediums . J. Exp. Educ. 87 , 101–115. 10.1080/00220973.2017.1411877 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Tuncer M., Bhadir F. (2014). Effect of screen reading and reading from printed out material on student success and permanency in introduction to computer lesson . Turk. Online J. Educ. Technol. 13 , 41–49. [ Google Scholar ]
• Ulum O. G. (2016). A descriptive content analysis of the extent of Bloom’s taxonomy in the reading comprehension questions of the course book Q: skills for success 4 reading and writing . Qual. Rep. 21 , 1674–1683. [ Google Scholar ]
• UNESCO (2009). “Conferencia mundial sobre la Educación Superior – 2009.” La nueva dinámica de la educación superior y la investigación para el cambio social y el desarrollo; July 5-8, 2009; Paris.
• van den Broek P., Espin C. A. (2012). Connecting cognitive theory and assessment: measuring individual differences in reading comprehension . Sch. Psychol. Rev. 43 , 315–325. 10.1080/02796015.2012.12087512 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• van den Broek P., Mouw J. M., Kraal A. (2016). “ Individual differences in reading comprehension ,” in Handbook of Individual Differences in Reading: Reader, Text, and Context. ed. Afflerbach E. P. (New York: Routledge; ), 138–150. [ Google Scholar ]
• Wolfe M. B. W., Woodwyk J. M. (2010). Processing and memory of information presented in narrative or expository texts . Br. J. Educ. Psychol. 80 , 341–362. 10.1348/000709910X485700, PMID: [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Xu Y., Wong R., He S., Veldre A., Andrews S. (2020). Is it smart to read on your phone? The impact of reading format and culture on the continued influence of misinformation . Mem. Cogn. 48 , 1112–1127. 10.3758/s13421-020-01046-0, PMID: [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Yáñez Botello C. R. (2013). Caracterización de los procesos cognoscitivos y competencias involucrados en los niveles de comprensión lectora en Estudiantes Universitarios . Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos de Psicología 13 , 75–90. 10.18270/chps.v13i2.1350 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Yussof Y. M., Jamian A. R., Hamzah Z. A. Z., Roslan A. (2013). Students’ reading comprehension performance with emotional . Int. J. Edu. Literacy Stud. 1 , 82–88. 10.7575/aiac.ijels.v.1n.1p.82 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Zheng Y., Cheng L., Klinger D. A. (2007). Do test format in reading comprehension affect second-language students’ test performance differently? TESL Can. J. 25 , 65–78. 10.18806/tesl.v25i1.108 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Impact of background music on reading comprehension: influence of lyrics language and study habits.

• 1 Department of Applied Psychology, College of Sports and Health, Shandong Sport University, Jinan, China
• 2 School of Physical Education, Shandong University, Jinan, China
• 3 Department of Insurance, Shandong University of Finance and Economics, Jinan, China
• 4 School of Psychology, Qufu Normal University, Qufu, China
• 5 Zizhong Middle School, Linqing, China
• 6 College of Physical Education and Health, Guangxi Normal University, Guilin, China

Numerous studies have explored the effects of background music on reading comprehension, however, little is known about how native language (L1) lyrics and second language (L2) lyrics in background music influence reading comprehension performance for college students. The present study used a mixed experimental design to examine the effects of listening habits (between-participants variable: non-listeners or listeners), music type (between-participants variable: L1 (Mandarin) pop music, L2 (English) pop music or no music) and text language (within-participants variable: L1 or L2) on reading comprehension of college students in East China. A total of 90 participants (50 females) were screened into non- listeners ( n  = 45) and listeners ( n  = 45), and then were randomly assigned to one of three groups: Mandarin pop music group ( n = 30), English pop music group ( n  = 30) and no music group ( n  = 30). The results showed that reading comprehension performance was negatively affected by music with lyrics compared to the no music condition. Furthermore, Chinese/English reading comprehension was reduced more by pop music in the same language as the written texts. As expected, non-listeners were more negatively affected by music with lyrics than listeners. For both listeners and non-listeners, average reading comprehension accuracy rates were the lowest in the condition of music with native language lyrics. Overall, our research findings indicate that listening to pop music with lyrics reduces reading comprehension performance. However, listening to background music cause much less distraction if the students commonly listen to music while reading. The current study supports the duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction.

1 Introduction

Listening to music while studying is a common and popular trend for college students. Calderwood et al. (2014) found that 59% of the college students chose to listen to music during a 3-h study session, with 21% listening for more than 90% of the time. Although several studies have demonstrated positive effects of background instrumental music on reading comprehension ( Carlson et al., 2004 ; Khaghaninejad et al., 2016 ) and second language learning ( Kang and Williamson, 2012 ), irrelevant sound from vocal music may cause auditory distraction from the task at hand ( Martin et al., 1988 ; Furnham and Strbac, 2002 ; Perham and Currie, 2014 ; Zhang et al., 2018 ; Du et al., 2020 ). Efficient learning is extremely important for college students. However, high levels of auditory distraction will not only affect efficient learning, but also impair mental and physical function and cause irritation and headaches in schools ( Astolfi et al., 2019 ). Thus, it is important to explore the mechanisms that produce auditory distraction. According to the duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction, the disruptive effect can be induced by interference-by-process or attentional capture ( Marsh et al., 2008 , 2009 ). To date, previous studies investigating the impact of music on reading comprehension have primarily focused on differences between instrumental and lyrical music (e.g., Erten et al., 2015 ), as well as the influence of differences in musical volume and speed (e.g., Thompson et al., 2012 ). Notably, these studies have not taken into consideration differences in participant preferences for listening to music while reading. In contrast, the present study investigated how differences in the lyrical language of the same song differentially influence reading comprehension based on reported music-listening habits. With the aim of testing the duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction, our study explored the interactive effects of native language (L1) lyrics and second language (L2) lyrics in music on reading comprehension performance in L1 and L2 for listeners and non-listeners by using a 3-factor mixed experimental design.

1.1 A duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction

According to the duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction, there are two functionally different types of auditory distraction. Interference-by-process occurs when a similar process used consciously to complete a focal task competes with the involuntary processing of sound. On the other hand, regardless of the task processes involved, attentional capture occurs when the sound triggers a disengagement of attention from the dominant task ( Hughes, 2014 ). For example, semantic speech (e.g., “orange, banana, strawberry”) can cause distraction effects on semantic-based cognitive tasks (e.g., free recall of visually presented words “apple, mango, pear”) ( Marsh et al., 2008 ). According to the interference-by-process theory, semantically similar speech automatically spreads activation through a long-term semantic network, interfering with the similar process of navigating such networks to retrieve information for the focal task ( Marsh and Jones, 2010 ; Hughes, 2014 ). Interference-by-process explains the semantic distraction effects. Attentional capture falls into two categories: When a sound’s unique content (such as one’s name or one’s native language) gives it the ability to deflect attention, a specific attentional capture takes place. In contrast, when an occurrence draws attention despite having nothing inherently attention-grabbing about it, but rather because of the context in which it takes place, nonspecific attentional capture is created ( Eimer et al., 1996 ). For example, a sound “B” in “CCCCCBCC” or a sound “C” in “BBBBBCBB.” Our study focused on interference-by-process and a specific attentional capture.

1.2 The impact of background music on reading comprehension

Reading comprehension, an important and necessary skill for effective academic learning in college, refers to the active process by which individuals understand and construct the meaning of texts based on prior knowledge and experience ( Perfetti et al., 2005 ). Kämpfe et al. (2010) claimed that reading might be more disturbed by vocal music than by instrumental music ( Kämpfe et al., 2010 ). The duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction has been supported by research evidence demonstrating the disruptive effects of background speech on various memory tasks such as serial short-term memory tasks. However, little is known about supporting evidence from the distraction effects of L1/L2 lyrics on L1/L2 reading comprehension among listeners and non-listeners. According to the simple view of reading model, reading comprehension consists of only two parts, word recognition and language comprehension, and both parts are necessary for reading success ( Hoover and Gough, 1990 ). For college students, mature readers whose word recognition has attained to a level of automation, language comprehension plays the more important role in reading comprehension. Lyrics in music contain semantic information, which will interfere with language comprehension ( Martin et al., 1988 ; Oswald et al., 2000 ). Thus, we expect that lyrics will induce semantic distraction effects on reading comprehension performance. Our first hypothesis was that the accuracy rates in music conditions would be significantly lower than the accuracy rates with no music for college students (H1).

The impact of background music on reading comprehension is generally contingent on multiple factors such as music types (instrumental or lyric music with various tempos, intensity, familiarity) ( Banbury et al., 2001 ; Hallam and Mac Donald, 2009 ). In addition to music types, previous studies have confirmed that the effects of music on reading comprehension can be significantly different in various levels of individual diversity (e.g., personality and music preferences) or difficulty of the reading comprehension task ( Kiger, 1989 ; Kallinen, 2002 ; Anderson and Fuller, 2010 ). For example, Anderson and Fuller (2010) suggested that disruptive effects of background lyrical music on reading comprehension was more pronounced for 7th- and 8th-grade students exhibiting a stronger preference for the lyrical music, compared with their performance in a quiet environment. Our experimental work focused on identifying interactive effects of music (pop music with L1/L2 lyrics), individual habits (e.g., listening to music in daily study) and tasks (L1/L2 written texts), which helps test whether interference-by-process and a specific attentional capture occurs.

First, pop music is the preferred music genre for most college students ( Etaugh and Michals, 1975 ; Wang and Wang, 2015 ). For example, Wang and Wang (2015) surveyed 3,688 Chinese college students in Beijing, Inner Mongolia, Shanghai, Henan and Jiangxi regions of Mainland China, and found that: (1) the proportion of college students who liked pop music was as high as 65.05%; (2) 35.23% college students chose “love” as their favorite pop music theme comparing with themes “nostalgic” 33.21%, “witty/humorous” 14.27%, “alternative” 9.49%,“other” 15.73%; (3) 47.85% college student’ favorite singers are from “Hong Kong and Taiwan.” Thus, we choose a masterpiece of classic Mandarin pop music “The Goodbye Kiss” (sung by Jacky Cheung) as the music. Although the song was released in 1993, from its release to 2020, there have been covers of the song by well-known singers almost every year. Specially, this song was covered by Michael Learns to Rock (MLTR) in 2004, and the English version of this song “Take me to your heart” became a classic of international music. Comparing the lyrics of the two songs, the Mandarin lyrics of “The Goodbye Kiss” have a total of 52 sentences, and the whole song is divided into two subsections. The shortest sentence in Mandarin lyrics has a total of five Chinese words, and the longest sentence has 19 words; the English lyrics reproduce the characteristics of the original Chinese sentence well in terms of sentence length and neatness, the shortest sentence consists of four words, and the longest is only 10 words ( Wei, 2012 ). Thus, we chose the pop music with lyrics “The Goodbye Kiss” as our vocal music.

Second, Mandarin Chinese (L1) and English (L2) are the top 2 most spoken languages in the world, and belong to two different language families ( Ethnologue, n.d. ). Additionally, all Chinese students begin their English study in their third year of primary school or even earlier, and studying English is a key subject for the Chinese college entrance examination required for admission to the university. They will continue to study English to pass College English Test Band 4/6 (CET- 4/6, essential English exams for Chinese college students) in college, and have considerable exposure to English music. English is the most important and widely studied second language for most Chinese college students. Hence, we chose Chinse college students from Mainland China who learn English as a second language for the experiment. Based on the duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction, when a similar process is used purposefully to accomplish a focal cognitive task and the involuntary processing of sound competes with it, interference-by-process occurs ( Hughes, 2014 ). In our experiment, interference-by-process is produced when lyrics are presented to college students who are deliberately completing a focal reading comprehension task, especially when the lyrics language is the same as the text language in the reading comprehension tasks. That is, the semantic activation of lyrics competes with the semantic access of reading comprehension tasks with the same language as lyrics. Thus, our hypothesis is that Chinese/English reading comprehension accuracy rates when listening to music in the same language would be significantly lower than that in different languages or no music (H2). To be specific, we hypothesized that Chinese reading comprehension accuracy rates when listening to music with Mandarin lyrics would be significantly lower than when listening to music with English lyrics, and English reading comprehension accuracy rates when listening to English music would be significantly lower than when listening to Mandarin music.

Third, students frequently report that listening to music while studying is useful ( Etaugh and Ptasnik, 1982 ), and these students are more likely to form the habit of listening to music in daily study. However, students without the habit instinctively think that music listening can provide a distraction that might affect reading comprehension. Individual differences in inhibitory control may exist between two groups. Inhibitory control refers to the ability to suppress an inappropriate reaction or disregard distracting or irrelevant information, and increased inhibitory control in students probably makes it easier for them to ignore distractions in their surroundings and concentrate on tasks inside and outside of the classroom ( Privitera et al., 2022b ). However, non-listeners do not develop the habit of listening to music while studying, probably because they have a low level of inhibitory control to concentrate on the focal tasks. Thus, we hypothesized that college students who typically did not report listening to music during study (non-listeners) would have lower reading comprehension accuracy rates than listeners when music was present (H3).

Based on the duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction, regardless of the quality of target tasks (e.g., Chinese/English comprehension), auditory attentional capture happens whenever a sound produces a disengagement from tasks. Numerous sound varieties (e.g., one’s own name, or her own infant’s screams for a mother) have abilities to specifically captivate attention ( Hughes, 2014 ). Native language (Mandarin Chinese) is familiar and highly dominant, and may cause a specific attentional capture. We expect that both non-listeners and listeners may be more susceptible to auditory distraction when Mandarin music is present rather than English music. That is, in general, people’s ability to understand what they read was worse when they listened to music with native language compared to music in a second language or no music at all. Thus, for both non-listeners and listeners, we hypothesized that average reading comprehension accuracy rates (without distinction between Chinese and English) would be the lowest in the condition of Mandarin music compared with the English/no music condition (H4).

1.3 Research questions

In sum, it is worth examining the effects of different habits of listening to music on reading comprehension performance, which can help clarify whether cultivating habits of listening to music while studying is valuable or not. In addition, few studies used both lyrics languages and music-listening habits while study to explore distractive effects of music on reading comprehension. To solve this problem, in this paper, we designed an experiment to explore the effects of music type, written text language and listening habits on reading comprehension among Chinese college students. Our research questions are: (1) would the accuracy rates in music conditions be significantly lower than the accuracy rates with no music for college students? (2) would Chinese/English reading comprehension accuracy rates when listening to music in the same language be significantly lower than that in different languages or no music? (3) would non-listeners have lower L1 and L2 reading comprehension accuracy rates than listeners when music was present? (4) would average reading comprehension accuracy rates (without distinction between Chinese and English) be the lowest in the condition of Mandarin music compared with the English/no music condition?

2.1 Participants

Before the experiment, we calculated the minimum sample size of each group of participants using G*Power 3.1.9.7 software ( Faul et al., 2007 ) to reach the statistical power. For observing a similar effect to relevant studies ( Peng et al., 2017 ), we use Effect size f  = 0.22, ɑ = 0.05, 1-β = 0.8 as parameters, number of groups = 6, number of measurements = 2, non-sphericity correction = 1; under the F test of ANOVA: repeated measures, within-between interaction ( Faul et al., 2021 ). Hence the total minimum number of participants should be 72, and the minimum number of participants in each large group should be 36.

The participants were screened by filling out a researcher-designed questionnaire of background music listening habits. All participants were recruited randomly from Shandong Sport University in Shandong Province of Mainland China. A total of 90 participants (50 females) between 18 to 21 years of age (Mean = 19.14, SD = 0.92) were selected. Our experiment divided the participants into 2 large groups first: listeners (45 participants) and non-listeners (45 participants). Participants in each large group were randomly assigned to one of three groups: 15 Mandarin pop music group, 15 English pop music group and 15 no music group. All six groups of participants were assigned Chinese and English texts.

Participants were native Mandarin Chinese speakers who started learning English in the third grade of primary school. None of the participants were music majors and English majors, and none of the participants had any formal musical training. They were all right-handed with normal or corrected-to-normal vision. The experimental protocol was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Shandong Sport University in China, and conducted in compliance with institutional guidelines and regulations. All participants signed an informed consent form prior to the experiment.

2.2 Experimental design

This study used a mixed factorial experimental design. There were two between-participants independent variables and a within-participants independent variable. The between-participants variables were listening habits (with two levels: listeners or non-listeners) and music type (with three levels: Mandarin pop music, English pop music or no music). The within-participants variable was text language (with two levels: Chinese or English). The dependent variable was accuracy rates for the reading comprehension tasks. Accuracy rates were defined as the mean percentage of the number of Chinese (English) reading comprehension items answered correctly in the total number of Chinese (English) reading comprehension items.

2.3 Materials and apparatus

Materials consisted of a questionnaire, pop music stimuli and written texts. The questionnaire was Researcher-designed Background Music Listening Habits Questionnaire, a self-report survey that was developed to assess participants’ habits of listening to music during study. This scale contained 15 items, each item rated on a Likert 5-point scale ranging from 1 to 5 (1 = Do not agree at all, 2 = Hardly agree, 3 = not sure, 4 = Mostly agree, 5 = Completely agree), and was scored as a continuous variable from 15 (minimum score) to 75 (maximum score). The Cronbach’s ɑ of the scale was 0.87. We used the questionnaire to screen listeners (a total score higher than 60, 60 is the average score of selecting option 4) and non-listeners (a total score lower than 30, 30 is the average score of selecting option 2) to examine distinct effects of listening habits on reading comprehension performance in the formal experiment.

Mandarin song “The Goodbye Kiss” (Mandarin name “Wen3 Bie2,” sung by Jacky Cheung) and English song “Take Me to Your Heart” (sung by Michael Learns to Rock) were used as background music stimuli, as these two songs have the same rhythm and tempo. The two songs were once popular music that are familiar to most Chinese college students. We used a music editor software Adobe Audition CS6 (Adobe Systems Inc., San Jose, CA, United States) to delete the blank space of “The Goodbye Kiss,” and the part with lyrics was kept to ensure that the participants could always be in a music environment with lyrics while carrying out reading comprehension tasks.

Chinese texts (300 character for each text) were selected from simulated tests of the College Entrance Examination; these texts are all about science and technology. English texts (150 words for each text) about education were selected from Public English Test System 3 (PET-3) tests. Preliminary tests were conducted on 120 college students, and finally 7 Chinese texts (coefficient of difficulty between 0.81 and 0.87) and 7 English texts (coefficient of difficulty between 0.85 and 0.90) were selected. There are no significant differences in difficulty coefficient of the 14 written texts. The difficulty coefficient of each text was estimated by the mean number of correct answers/4 (total number of questions). The coefficient of difficulty 0.81 indicates that, on average, three questions were correctly answered by college students. Participants read passages that were two paragraphs long, and then answered four true or false items following each passage. The items include both literal and inferential comprehension questions. Answers to literal questions involve facts such as who, when, where and what, and they can always be found in the texts. For example, “As early as 1909, Max Mow confirmed that there are some cells in the blood that can make blood, True or False.” For inferential questions, participants are required to determine a text’s meaning indirectly by using the information provided in the text. For example, “By the time most students graduate from high school, they spend less time watching TV than they do in class, True or False.” 3 Chinese texts and 3 English texts were used for assessing the levels of reading comprehension of all three groups (L1 pop music, L2 pop music and no music) of participants before the formal experiments. This was done to make sure that there were no significant differences of Chinese and English reading comprehension levels among the three groups. A different set of 3 Chinese texts and 3 English texts were used for the formal experiments. A Chinese text (difficulty coefficient 0.84) and an English text (difficulty coefficient 0.90) were selected for use in the practice phase.

The apparatus consisted of Lenovo laptops (Yoga 14 s, Lenovo Group Ltd., Beijing, China), noise-canceling headphones (SONY WH-1000XM3, Sony Corp., Tokyo, Japan) and E-prime 2.0. The music stimuli, instructions, texts and questions were all presented on Lenovo laptops using programs written in E-prime 2.0 (Psychology Software Tools, Pittsburgh, PA, United States) ( Schneider et al., 2012a , b ).

2.4 Procedure

Participants filled out the informed consent for participating in the study, then were screened by filling out the Questionnaire of Background Music Listening Habits online. Based on the questionnaire total score, the participants were divided into two large group: listeners and non-listeners. Participants in each large group were randomly assigned to one of three groups (Mandarin music, English music and no music). All three groups of participants completed Chinese and English reading comprehension tasks without music before formal experiments, and no significant differences of Chinese and English reading comprehension performance were observed among the three groups.

In the formal experiment phase, all participants were asked to complete experiment tasks in a quiet lab, with 10 participants in each group seated at individual tables with Lenovo laptops and headphones. First, participants were told to put on headphones and conduct the experiment on Lenovo laptops individually. All music was played between 60 dB ~ 65 dB(A), each participant first put on the headphones and checked to see whether the playback function of the headphones was normal. Then, Participants completed Chinese and English reading comprehension test items under each condition of music type. For each condition, half of the participants read the Chinese text first and the other half read the English text first. The 3 Chinese texts and 3 English texts were presented to participants randomly. After reading each passage, participants pressed the spacebar to end the reading (The maximum reading time for each text is 5 min), and proceeded to answer comprehension questions by pressing “T” (indicating truth) or “F” (indicating false) on keyboards. The flow chart of the experimental procedure presented using E-prime 2.0 was shown in Figure 1 .

Figure 1 . The flow chart of the experimental procedure presented using E-prime 2.0.

Participants were asked to answer questions as accurately as possible after reading the passages and to ignore the music. The accuracy rate of each participant was calculated by the total number of Chinese/English items answered correctly/12 (the total number of Chinese/English reading comprehension items). Every participant completed both Chinese texts and English texts in one of three conditions (Mandarin Chinese pop music, English pop music and no music). We tested the effects of listening to music in the same language conditions (L1 music + L1 texts, L2 music + L2 texts) or different language conditions (L1 music + L2 texts, L2 music + L1 texts). For example, participants listening to L1 (Mandarin Chinese) pop music completed L1 (Chinese) texts (the same as lyrics language) and L2 (English) texts (different from lyrics language). Music was played until all participants finished reading comprehension test items.

2.5 Statistical analyses

The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (IBM SPSS, version 23.0; IBM SPSS, Armonk, NY, United States) was used for analysis of the data. The assumptions of ANOVA (homogeneity of variances and normal distribution) were tested. Then the reading comprehension accuracy rates were analyzed using a three-way mixed ANOVA with a within-participants factor (two types of written text language) and two between-participant variables (listening habits and music type). The alpha criterion was set to 0.05. Bonferroni correction was carried out for all post hoc analyses.

One-way ANOVA revealed that baseline reading comprehension performances of three groups (Mandarin music group, English music group and no music group) have no significant difference [Chinese: F (2, 87) = 0.226, p  = 0.718; English: F (2, 87) = 0.217, p  = 0.806].

3.1 Descriptive statistics

Means and standard deviations of the reading comprehension accuracy rates are shown in Table 1 . A three-way mixed ANOVA for reading comprehension accuracy rates, including two between-participants factors (2 listening habit, 3 music type) and one within-participants factor (2 written text language) was performed ( Table 2 ).

Table 1 . Reading comprehension accuracy rates [mean (standard deviations)] by group and condition.

Table 2 . A three-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) of reading comprehension accuracy rates.

3.2 Main effect analysis and interactive effect analyses

3.2.1 main effects of music type.

We tested our hypothesis (H1) that the accuracy rates in music conditions would be significantly lower than the accuracy rates with no music for college students. We performed a three-way mixed ANOVA for reading comprehension accuracy rates to obtain the main effects and interactive effects. Significant main effects of music type [ F (2, 87) = 232.791, p < 0.001, η 2 p = 0.847] were observed as shown in Table 2 . Post hoc analyses revealed the accuracy rates in Mandarin and English music conditions are significantly lower than the accuracy rates with no music ( ps < 0.01). A mean difference of accuracy rates was −0.081 between Mandarin music and English music condition (95% CI: [−0.110, −0.051]), and was −0.175 between English music and no music condition (95% CI: [−0.205, −0.145]). Thus, the results confirmed our hypothesis H1. The result reveals that music with lyrics decreased reading comprehension performance as compared to no music.

3.2.2 Interactive effects of music type and text language

Our second hypothesis (H2) was confirmed by using a three-way mixed ANOVA. H2 was that Chinese/English reading comprehension accuracy rates when listening to music in the same language would be significantly lower than those with different languages. We observed a significant interaction between music type and text language [ F (2, 87) = 113.829, p < 0.001, η 2 p = 0.730] as shown in Table 2 . For Chinese reading comprehension, as shown in Figure 2 , post hoc analyses showed that the accuracy rates in Mandarin music group were significantly lower than English music group [ t (58) = −5.526, p < 0.001] and no music group [ t (58) = −8.420, p < 0.001]. A mean difference of Chinese reading accuracy rates was −0.286 between Mandarin music and English music condition (95% CI: [−0.392, −0.180]), and was −0.378 between Mandarin music and no music condition (95% CI: [−0.484, −0.272]). For English reading comprehension, the accuracy rates in the English music group were significantly lower than the Mandarin music group [ t (58) = −2.385, p = 0.023 < 0.05; Figure 2 ] and the no music group [ t (58) = −7.041, p < 0.001; Figure 2 ]. A mean difference of English reading accuracy rates was −0.125 between English music and Mandarin music condition (95% CI: [−0.234, −0.016]), and was −0.258 between English music and no music condition (95% CI: [−0.367, −0.150]). These results confirmed our hypothesis H2, and suggested that college students were more distracted by music in the same language as the written texts.

Figure 2 . Accuracy rates of Chinese reading comprehension and English reading comprehension for different music types. ** p  < 0.01; *** p  < 0.001.

3.2.3 Main effects of listening habits and interactive effects of listening habits and music type

Three-way mixed ANOVA was also used to test our third hypothesis (H3) that non-listeners would have lower reading comprehension accuracy rates than listeners when music was present. The results in Table 2 showed that a significant main effect of listening habits [ F (1, 88) = 634.331, p < 0.001, η 2 p = 0.883]. Post hoc analyses revealed that reading comprehension accuracy rates were lower in non-listeners than listeners ( p < 0.001). The Table 2 also showed that the interactive effects of listening habits and music type were significant [ F (2, 87) = 160.672, p < 0.001, η 2 p = 0.793]. Post hoc analyses showed significantly lower reading comprehension accuracy rates in the non-listeners compared to listeners, in conditions of music as shown in Figure 3 [Mandarin music: t (58) = −138.782, p < 0.001; English music: t (58) = −99.729, p < 0.001]. A mean difference of accuracy rates between non-listeners and listeners was −0.430 in the Mandarin music condition (95% CI: [−0.464, −0.396]), and was −0.309 in the English music condition (95% CI: [−0.343, −0.274]). These results suggest that reading comprehension performance was more negatively affected by music in the non-listeners than in the listeners, confirming our third hypothesis (H3).

Figure 3 . Reading comprehension accuracy rates in different music type groups for different listening habits. *** p  < 0.001.

Significant interaction effects between listening habits and music type [ F (2, 87) = 160.672, p < 0.001, η 2 p = 0.793] were observed as shown in Table 2 . For the non-listeners, as shown in Figure 4 , post hoc analyses revealed the accuracy rates while listening to Mandarin music are significantly lower than with English music [ t (58) = −45.508, p  < 0.001] and significantly lower than accuracy rates with no music [ t (58) = −150.401, p < 0.001]. A mean difference of reading accuracy rates was −0.142 between Mandarin music and English music condition (95% CI: [−0.183, −0.100]), and was −0.467 between Mandarin music and no music condition (95% CI: [−0.508, −0.425]); For the listener, post hoc analyses revealed the accuracy rates while listening to Mandarin music are significantly lower than accuracy rates with no music [ t (58) = −14.524, p < 0.001]. A mean difference of reading accuracy rates was −0.045 between Mandarin music and no music condition (95% CI: [−0.086, −0.003]). Thus, the results also supported our hypothesis H4 that average reading comprehension accuracy rates (without distinction between Chinese and English) would be the lowest in the condition of Mandarin music compared with the English/no music condition for both non-listeners and listeners. These results suggested that music with native language lyrics negatively affected the reading comprehension performance of college students.

Figure 4 . Reading comprehension accuracy rates in different listening habits groups for different music types. * p  < 0.05; *** p  < 0.001.

4 Discussion

The main purpose of this study was to explore the disruptive effects of background music lyrics on first language (L1) and second language (L2) reading comprehension performance among Chinese college students. We also included the influence of music-listening habits by using a 3-factor mixed factorial experimental design. First, our results showed that reading comprehension accuracy rates in music conditions are significantly lower than the accuracy rates with no music. Second, L1/L2 reading comprehension accuracy rates when listening to music in the same language are significantly lower than when listening to a different language. Third, the results showed that significantly lower accuracy rates in non-listeners than listeners when music was played. Finally, for both the non-listeners and listeners, average reading comprehension accuracy rates are the lowest in the condition of Mandarin music compared with English/no music condition. Our results provide experimental evidence in support of distraction effects of L1 or L2 music on L1 and L2 reading comprehension performance among Chinese college students. In addition, our findings also offer additional evidence in favor of the duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction. Overall, the results support our hypotheses.

4.1 The effect of music type

Compared to the no music condition, reading comprehension performance were reduced by music with lyrics. This result is consistent with previous studies which found disruptive effects of vocal music on reading comprehension ( Anderson and Fuller, 2010 ; Perham and Currie, 2014 ; Ren and Xu, 2019 ; Dong et al., 2022 ). Thompson et al. (2012) showed that fast and loud instrumental music disrupts reading comprehension more than slow-tempo music ( Thompson et al., 2012 ). However, though the music in our study is slow-tempo, disruptive effects on reading comprehension were still observed. Lyrics had a significantly detrimental effect on reading comprehension. The finding of the current study supports the interference-by-process in the duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction. According to the interference-by-process, music with lyrics in both L1 and L2 detracted from the performance because semantically processing of the lyrics in these two languages conflicts with semantic processing and access that reading demands ( Quan and Kuo, 2023 ). For comparison, some researchers used musical excerpts in combination with meaningless words as music stimuli. The musical excerpts with meaningless lyrics were unknown to the participants to avoid any associations between the music and semantic or episodic memory. Their results showed neither an enhancing nor a detrimental effect on verbal learning when different styles of background music were played ( Jäncke and Sandmann, 2010 ). However, the present study indicated that music with meaningful lyrics interferes with reading comprehension performance. Language comprehension plays an important role in reading comprehension performance ( Hoover and Gough, 1990 ), and both lyrics and written texts contained semantic information. According to the duplex-mechanism account, from the perspective of the interference-by-process, the semantic interference effects can be explained by assuming that semantic speech triggers automatic spreading of semantic activation over a long-term semantic network that interferes with the analogous process of steering such networks for the purpose of retrieval in the reading comprehension tasks ( Marsh and Jones, 2010 ; Hughes, 2014 ). Therefore, the lyrics act as competing stimuli with written texts and impair their access to word meaning.

4.2 The interaction between music type and text language

Regardless of whether the music and texts were in their L1 or L2 language, Chinese college students were more distracted by music in the same language as the texts. This result indicates that a more detrimental effect on reading comprehension occurred when the auditory input (music lyrics) is the same as the written text language. Based on interference-by-process, the irrelevant semantic information from the speech creates competition for the primary tasks’ dynamic semantic encoding and retrieval processes. As they both vie for semantic access, impairment can therefore be explained in terms of a relative difficulty in choosing the appropriate source of semantic information ( Marsh et al., 2009 ). When lyrics language is the same as the text, the competition process becomes stronger and thus the selection process is more difficult, which causes a more disruptive effect on reading performance. We used music lyrics with L1/L2 as different potential sources of auditory distraction, and the finding provides a further strand of support for interference-by-process.

4.3 The effect of listening habits

Our results revealed that reading comprehension performance by the non-listeners were more negatively affected by music than the listeners. These findings are in line with the results of previous studies which showed that people who seldom studied in the presence of background music performed better on reading comprehension tasks in silence ( Etaugh and Michals, 1975 ; Etaugh and Ptasnik, 1982 ). These results indicate that background music caused detrimental effects for individuals who normally study without music. In contrast, college students who regularly listen to music while studying have much experience of listening to music, and the top-down features (e.g., high working memory and high inhibitory control) can lessen the interference to cognitive activities caused by shared processing of irrelevant information ( Quan and Kuo, 2023 ; Privitera et al., 2023b ). Specifically, differences in working memory/inhibitory control between non-listeners and listeners may lead the differential effects of music on reading comprehension, because working memory may generally have an impact on individual ability to carry out cognitive tasks while listening to music ( König et al., 2005 ; Christopher and Shelton, 2017 ), and it is generally observed that those with high working memory capacity are less easily distracted by irrelevant stimuli ( Hughes, 2014 ). Recent studies also revealed that differences in inhibitory and/or attentional control could predict academic performance including reading (e.g., Privitera et al., 2023b ), thus, the relatively low working memory/inhibitory control may make non-listeners were more disrupted by music compared with listeners. In other words, though listeners are negatively affected by music, they are accustomed to reading in the presence of music, thus background music sounds are less distracting for them.

4.4 The interaction between listening habits and music type

Our results indicated that for both non-listeners and listeners, music with native language lyrics negatively affected the average reading comprehension performance. The results provide support for the duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction: in addition to interference-by-process, sound can also produce unnecessary distraction by attentional capture. Music lyrics with the same language as the written texts distract college students by interfering specifically with the similar semantic access processes involved in the reading comprehension task. In contrast, music with native language lyrics disengages students from reading comprehension tasks. Compared to L2 lyrics, native language lyrics are high dominant and more familiar, which may make students rely too much on music rather than keeping them from reading due to music. Thus, a specific attentional capture also caused the auditory distraction. This finding of auditory distraction in different lyrics language conditions provides additional evidence in favor of the duplex-mechanism account.

4.5 Limitations and further research

Several limitations should be noted. First, the participants’ English language proficiency, cognitive control and working memory were not assessed. In future study the L2 proficiency can be balanced to explore unique music lyrics effects on reading comprehension, because recent studies have shown that L2 proficiency are correlated to inhibition and attentional control ( Privitera et al., 2022a , 2023a ), and cognitive control has been found to have a significant impact on academic performance including reading ( Privitera et al., 2023b ). Working memory/cognitive control can be included as a key variable to explore its effect on reading comprehension while listening to music among non-listeners/listeners. Second, sound without lyrics (e.g., pop music without lyrics or white noise) was not included as one level of music type. Future study can compare reading comprehension performance differences between sound without lyrics group and music with lyrics/no music group to explore the various effects of sound. Third, questions about what music genres participants listen to and their relative frequencies were not included in the researcher-designed questionnaire of background music listening habits. The questionnaire needs to be modified, and should include questions on music genres in future study. Fourth, music type should be manipulated as a within-subject factor instead of a between-subject factor in future study. Finally, this is a behavioral experiment examining music lyrics effects on reading comprehension. With the aim of obtaining the brain and neuroscience evidence to support the duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction, future studies could explore differences in brain and neural activities when students complete reading comprehension while listening to L1/L2 music, and identify the precise locus of the interference-by-process and attentional capture. These differences may indicate that interference-by-process and attentional capture obtain the functional support of different brain regions which further supports duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction.

4.6 Implications

The current study benefits from several strengths. It is the first study to explore effects of L1 or L2 music lyrics on L1/L2 reading comprehension performance among Chinese college students with different listening habits. For reading comprehension with L1/L2, L1/L2 reading comprehension performance reduced more when the music lyrics language was the same as the written texts. For example, L2 reading performance decreased more when both lyrics and written texts language is L2. In general, for average reading comprehension performance, music with native language lyrics affected it negatively more than L2 music/no music. The current study provided experimental evidence to support the duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction, and revealed that the duplex-mechanism account can also be applied to auditory distraction of reading comprehension tasks other than serial short-term tasks. The novelty of our study is to distinguish effects of lyrics with native language/s language on L1/L2 reading comprehension. Reading performance difference in lyrics with L1/L2 conditions suggests that auditory distraction has two functionally distinct forms: interference-by-process and attentional capture. The contribution of our research is that choosing music and written texts with L1/L2 helps methodically separate the potential individual contributions of interference-by-process and attentional capture to the overall disruption of task performance.

Our other findings were that reading comprehension performance was reduced by pop music lyrics. In addition, non-listeners were more distracted by lyrics than listeners. These findings have practical implications. Though most college students love pop music, and they usually report that listening to music while studying is beneficial, for college students and educators, it is better not to play pop music with lyrics while students, especially students without music-listening habits, are reading articles whether in their native languages or a second language.

5 Conclusion

The present study is an important first step in examining the effects of music with L1 or L2 lyrics on L1/L2 reading comprehension performance among Chinese college students with different listening habits. By using a 3-factor mixed factorial experimental design, we showed that the results verified our hypotheses. Specifically, the key findings are: (1) reading comprehension performance was negatively affected by music with lyrics compared to the no music condition; (2) L1/L2 reading comprehension was more affected by music in the same language as the texts; (3) Non-listeners were more negatively affected by music with lyrics than listeners; (4) For both non-listener and listeners, average reading comprehension accuracy rates are the lowest in the condition of music with native language lyrics. These findings support the claim that college students’ reading performance suffers when they listen to pop music with lyrics compared to no music, and provide experimental evidence support for the duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction.

Data availability statement

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Ethics statement

The studies involving humans were approved by Research Ethics Committee of Shandong Sport University. The studies were conducted in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Author contributions

YS: Conceptualization, Data curation, Methodology, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. CS: Funding acquisition, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. CL: Methodology, Writing – review & editing. XS: Investigation, Writing – review & editing. QL: Investigation, Writing – review & editing. HL: Methodology, Writing – review & editing.

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by Shandong University undergraduate teaching reform (grant numbers: 2023Y251; 2023YJJGND07) and undergraduate teaching reform in Shandong province (grant number: Z2022096).

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Pamela Holt for useful discussions and critically reading the manuscript.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Anderson, S. A., and Fuller, G. B. (2010). Effect of music on reading comprehension of junior high school students. Sch. Psychol. 25, 178–187. doi: 10.1037/a0021213

Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Astolfi, A., Puglisi, G. E., Murgia, S., Minelli, G., Pellerey, F., Prato, A., et al. (2019). Influence of classroom acoustics on noise disturbance and well-being for first graders. Front. Psychol. 10:2736. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02736

PubMed Abstract | Crossref Full Text | Google Scholar

Banbury, S. P., Macken, W. J., Tremblay, S., and Jones, D. M. (2001). Auditory distraction and short-term memory: phenomena and practical implications. Hum. Factors 43, 12–29. doi: 10.1518/001872001775992462

Calderwood, C., Ackerman, P. L., and Conklin, E. M. (2014). What else do college students “do” while studying? An investigation of multitasking. Comput. Educ. 75, 19–29. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2014.02.004

Carlson, J. K., Hoffman, J., Gray, D., and Thompson, A. (2004). A musical interlude: using music and relaxation to improve reading performance. Interv. Sch. Clin. 39, 246–250. doi: 10.1177/10534512040390040801

Christopher, E. A., and Shelton, J. T. (2017). Individual differences in working memory predict the effect of music on student performance. J. Appl. Res. Mem. Cogn. 6, 167–173. doi: 10.1016/j.jarmac.2017.01.012

Dong, Y., Zheng, H. Y., Wu, S. X. Y., Huang, F. Y., Peng, S. N., Sun, S. Y. K., et al. (2022). The effect of Chinese pop background music on Chinese poetry reading comprehension. Psychol. Music 50, 1544–1565. doi: 10.1177/03057356211062940

Du, M., Jiang, J., Li, Z. M., Man, D. R., and Jiang, C. M. (2020). The effects of background music on neural responses during reading comprehension. Sci. Rep. 10:18651. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-75623-3

Eimer, M., Nattkemper, D., Schröger, E., and Prinz, W. (1996). “Involuntary attention” in Handbook of perception and action . eds. O. Neumann and A. F. Sanders, vol. 3 (London: Academic Press), 389–446.

Google Scholar

Erten, O., Ece, A. S., and Eren, A. (2015). The effects of reading with music on reading comprehension. Glob. J. Hum. Soc. Sci. 1, 619–627.

Etaugh, C., and Michals, D. (1975). Effects on reading comprehension of preferred music and frequency of studying to music. Percept. Mot. Skills 41, 553–554. doi: 10.2466/pms.1975.41.2.553

Etaugh, C., and Ptasnik, P. (1982). Effects of studying to music and post-study relaxation on reading comprehension. Percept. Mot. Skills 55, 141–142. doi: 10.2466/pms.1982.55.1.141

Ethnologue . (n.d.). Languages of the World . SIL International. Available at: https://www.ethnologue.com/ (Accessed February 27, 2024).

Faul, F., Erdfelder, E., Lang, A.-G., and Buchner, A. (2007). G*power 3: a flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences. Behav. Res. Methods 39, 175–191. doi: 10.3758/BF03193146

Faul, F., Erdfelder, E., Lang, A.-G., and Buchner, A. (2021). F test: Fixed effects ANOVA–- special, main effects and interactions. G * Power 3.1 manual. 28–29. Available at: https://www.psychologie.hhu.de/arbeitsgruppen/allgemeine-psychologie-und-arbeitspsychologie/gpower .

Furnham, A., and Strbac, L. (2002). Music is as distracting as noise: the differential distraction of background music and noise on the cognitive test performance of introverts and extraverts. Ergonomics 45, 203–217. doi: 10.1080/00140130210121932

Hallam, S., and Mac Donald, R. A. R. (2009). “The effects of music in community and educational settings” in The Oxford handbook of music psychology (New York: Oxford University Press), 471–480.

Hoover, W. A., and Gough, P. B. (1990). The simple view of reading. Read. Writ. 2, 127–160. doi: 10.1007/BF00401799

Hughes, R. W. (2014). Auditory distraction: a duplex-mechanism account. PsyCh 3, 30–41. doi: 10.1002/pchj.44

Jäncke, L., and Sandmann, P. (2010). Music listening while you learn: no influence of background music on verbal learning. Behav. Brain Funct. 6:3. doi: 10.1186/1744-9081-6-3

Kallinen, K. (2002). Reading news from a pocket computer in a distracting environment: effects of the tempo of background music. Comput. Hum. Behav. 18, 537–551. doi: 10.1016/S0747-5632(02)00005-5

Kämpfe, J., Sedlmeier, P., and Renkewitz, F. (2010). The impact of background music on adult listeners: a meta-analysis. Psychol. Music 39, 424–448. doi: 10.1177/0305735610376261

Kang, H. J., and Williamson, V. J. (2012). The effect of background music on second language learning. In Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition and the 8th Triennial Conference of the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music, pp. 516–518.

Khaghaninejad, M. S., Motlagh, H. S., and Chamacham, R. (2016). How does Mozart’s music affect the reading comprehension of Iranian EFL learners of both genders? Int. J. Human. Cult. Stud. 489–499.

Kiger, D. M. (1989). Effects of music information load on a reading comprehension task. Percept. Mot. Skills 69, 531–534. doi: 10.2466/pms.1989.69.2.531

König, C. J., Bühner, M., and Mürling, G. (2005). Working memory, fluid intelligence, and attention are predictors of multitasking performance, but polychronicity and extraversion are not. Hum. Perform. 18, 243–266. doi: 10.1207/s15327043hup1803_3

Marsh, J. E., Hughes, R. W., and Jones, D. M. (2008). Auditory distraction in semantic memory: a process-based approach. J. Mem. Lang. 58, 682–700. doi: 10.1016/j.jml.2007.05.002

Marsh, J. E., Hughes, R. W., and Jones, D. M. (2009). Interference by process, not content, determines semantic auditory distraction. Cognition 110, 23–38. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2008.08.003

Marsh, J. E., and Jones, D. M. (2010). Cross-modal distraction by background speech: what role for meaning? Noise Health 12, 210–216. doi: 10.4103/1463-1741.70499

Martin, R. C., Wogalter, M. S., and Forlano, J. G. (1988). Reading comprehension in the presence of unattended speech and music. J. Mem. Lang. 27, 382–398. doi: 10.1016/0749-596X(88)90063-0

Oswald, C. J. P., Tremblay, S., and Jones, D. M. (2000). Disruption of comprehension by the meaning of irrelevant sound. Memory 8, 345–350. doi: 10.1080/09658210050117762

Peng, S. N., Chen, M. J., and Wang, J. D. (2017). Background music promotes reading comprehension: experimental results with different preferences. J. Jiaying Univ. 10, 96–100.

Perfetti, C. A., Landi, N., and Oakhill, J. (2005) in The acquisition of Reading comprehension skill, the science of Reading: A handbook . eds. M. J. Snowling and C. Hulme (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing), 227–247.

Perham, N., and Currie, H. (2014). Does listening to preferred music improve reading comprehension performance? Appl. Cogn. Psychol. 28, 279–284. doi: 10.1002/acp.2994

Privitera, A. J., Momenian, M., and Weekes, B. S. (2022a). Task-specific bilingual effects in mandarin-English speaking high school students in China. Curr. Res. Behav. Sci. 3:100066. doi: 10.1016/j.crbeha.2022.100066

Privitera, A. J., Momenian, M., and Weekes, B. S. (2023a). Graded bilingual effects on attentional network function in Chinese high school students. Biling. Lang. Congn. 26, 527–537. doi: 10.1017/S1366728922000803

Privitera, A. J., Zhou, Y., and Xie, X. (2023b). Inhibitory control as a significant predictor of academic performance in Chinese high schoolers. Child Neuropsychol. 29, 457–473. doi: 10.1080/09297049.2022.2098941

Privitera, A. J., Zhou, Y., Xie, X., and Huang, D. (2022b). Inhibitory control predicts academic performance beyond fluid intelligence and processing speed in English-immersed Chinese high schoolers. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 44. Available at: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/77r925hr .

Quan, Y., and Kuo, Y. L. (2023). The effects of Chinese and English background music on Chinese reading comprehension. Psychol. Music 51, 655–663. doi: 10.1177/03057356221101647

Ren, Y. N., and Xu, W. X. (2019). Effect of Chinese and English background music on efficiency on Chinese and English reading comprehension. Adv. Psychol. 9, 978–984. doi: 10.12677/AP.2019.96120

Schneider, W., Eschman, A., and Zuccolotto, A. (2012a). E-prime User’s guide . Pittsburgh: Psychology Software Tools, Inc.

Schneider, W., Eschman, A., and Zuccolotto, A. (2012b). E-Prime Reference Guide . Pittsburgh: Psychology Software Tools, Inc.

Thompson, W. F., Schellenberg, E. G., and Letnic, A. K. (2012). Fast and loud background music disrupts reading comprehension. Psychol. Music 40, 700–708. doi: 10.1177/0305735611400173

Wang, L. P., and Wang, F. (2015). An empirical study on popular songs and the cultivation of college students’ core values. J. Inner Mongolia Norm. Univ. Edu. Sci. 33–37.

Wei, S. H. (2012). Lyrics Translation under the Guidance of Xu Yuanchong’s Poetry Translation Theory: A Case Study of the English Translation of the Internet Pop Song “The Goodbye Kiss”. Campus English :113+115.

Zhang, H., Miller, K., Cleveland, R., and Cortina, K. (2018). How listening to music affects reading: evidence from eye tracking. J. Exp. Psychol. Learn. Mem. Cogn. 44, 1778–1791. doi: 10.1037/xlm0000544

Keywords: reading comprehension, study habits, pop music with lyrics, native language lyrics, second language lyrics, written text language, Chinese college students

Citation: Sun Y, Sun C, Li C, Shao X, Liu Q and Liu H (2024) Impact of background music on reading comprehension: influence of lyrics language and study habits. Front. Psychol . 15:1363562. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1363562

Received: 13 January 2024; Accepted: 25 March 2024; Published: 05 April 2024.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2024 Sun, Sun, Li, Shao, Liu and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Chuanning Sun, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

A Quantitative Research for Improving Reading Comprehension of First Year Engineering Students of QUEST, Pakistan Through Metacognitive Strategies

This quantitative research investigates first year engineering students' reading comprehension using the different metacognitive strategies and scaffolding strategies. The research was undertaken at QUEST, Nawabshah, Pakistan. The respondents of this research were taken from four engineering departments including Mechanical Engineering, Energy and Environmental Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Computer System Engineering. A set of questionnaire was used among 311 respondents. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics to analyze research variables through SPSS 17 for producing the Percentages, Mean and Standard Deviation of the data. The results acquired from data suggested that the engineering respondents used their metacognitive strategies in order to make their comprehension easy to apprehend the meaning of reading passages. This research also revealed the average uses of twenty important categories on metacognitive strategies as reported by engineering respondents. The mean score for 'I often find that I have been reading for class but don't know what it is all about' category (M = 2.65) was rated by the respondents of this research as the highest; while the mean score for 'reading instructions carefully before beginning a task' (M = 1.54) was rated as the lowest. The results also showed that the respondents of this study revealed the average uses of the twelve important categories of scaffolding. However, the mean score for 'When studying this course I often set aside time to discuss the course material with a group of students from the class' category (M = 2.29) was the highest for all respondents; whereas, the mean score for 'I ask teachers/students for help when they do not understand' (M = 1.37) was the lowermost. However, no category of metacognitive strategies and scaffolding fell into low level of usage. To sum up, results are presented for developing effective reading strategies for engineering students to improve their reading proficiency.

Related Papers

International of English Linguistics

Dr. Abdul Malik Abbasi

This study aimed at investigating the development of reading comprehension of engineering students through metacognitive strategies and scaffolding. This study used 12 classroom observations in four engineering departments of one public university in Pakistan. The researcher observed 3 classes in each department at the time of read-aloud sessions. The class in each department was comprised on minimum 55 students and maximum 75 students. The researcher himself conducted all the 12 observations to maintain reliability without interfere of the complete teaching method. Teacher in each class was introduced by the observer and his aim to come in the first observation session. The observer sat at the back of every classroom and noted all instructional practices carefully on the field-notes based on teachers using metacognitive strategies to support students in terms of reading comprehension instructions. This study revealed the promising results based on metacognitive scaffolding and strategies as the most important tools for engineering students and language teachers to use for the development of reading and comprehension.

International Journal of English Linguistics

The paper investigates the use of metacognitive strategies by first year engineering students at the time of classroom practice on reading text. The study was conducted in four engineering departments of a university in Pakistan. Data was collected through focus group interviews of first year engineering students. The researchers developed interview questions which were validated by two experts at university Malaysia Sarawak. Students were divided into 8 groups and each group had 5 informants. The data was recorded in audiotape and organized gathered data through NVivo version 8 for interpretation of the results. The most important themes were generated through data analysis including thinking through images of the texts, selecting the main ideas, selecting the topic sentences, scanning of the texts, summarizing of the texts, and Questioning. The study contributed theoretically by giving the most promising results which showed that more than half of these groups used metacognitive strategies in classroom reading practice while less than half of groups did not use strategies and remained poor in reading comprehension. This study proposed to develop reading comprehension courses and syllabus based on reading strategies for engineering students.

faisal khellab

This experimental research investigates the impact of teaching metacognitive reading strategies on the reading comprehension of engineering students in the English for Science and Technology(EST) context. This research is the first empirical study of its kind in Libyan English as a Foreign Language (EFL/EST) context. The study utilizes the Survey of Reading Strategies (SORS) and a reading comprehension achievement test extracted from 'Oxford English for Computing' by Boechner and Brown (instruction manual). The treatment incorporates the explicit teaching of metacognitive strategies to the participants in the experimental group via the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA) model. Paired-samples t-test results signify a considerable treatment effect among the experimental group. In conclusion, the findings support previous research indicating that explicit instruction effectively improves Libyan EST students' metacognitive awareness and produces statistically significant gains in reading comprehension.

Norhiza Ismail

This research focuses on readers’ metacognitive strategies when reading second language (L2) academic texts. This research seeks to find out readers’ perceived use of metacognitive strategies when reading L2 academic texts and the actual metacognitive strategies used by the readers when reading L2 academic texts. Instruments for data collection were questionnaire, think-aloud protocol and interview. The subjects for this study were first year students from Chemical Engineering Faculty. Twenty eight students were chosen from one section of English for Academic Communication class as participants for this research. They were given the adapted questionnaire on Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI) to determine readers’ perceived use of metacognitive strategies in reading. Data from the think-aloud protocol were used to determine the actual metacognitive strategies used by readers when reading. Results showed that overall, most of the readers indicated their aw...

Journal of Language and Cultural Education

The main aim of this research was to investigate metacognitive strategies through reading comprehension practice by first year students of engineering departments. The students of four engineering departments were selected as the participants in this research work. The qualitative instrument based on focus group interview was used for collecting data from first year students of four engineering departments to know the perceptions and their needs to develop reading comprehension through metacognitive strategies. The researchers developed interview questions for this study. These questions were validated by two experts of faculty of cognitive science and human development at university Malaysia Sarawak. The researchers obtained permission from the chairmen of four departments at a university in Pakistan. Almost 8 groups consisting of 5 informants in each participated in this research. The data was documented by using audiotape ; NVivo software, version 8 was used to organize data for obtaining main themes of the study. This research generated the most important themes for the interpretation of the results. The study contributed the most promising results which revealed that more than half of these groups used metacognitive strategies in classroom reading practice while less than half of groups did not use strategies and remained poor in reading comprehension. This research suggested administrators, teachers, and curriculum designers to design and implement reading comprehension courses and syllabus for first year engineering students.

Journal of Language Teaching and Research

International Journal of Academic Research in Business & Social Sciences

Noor Hanim Rahmat, (Associate Professor, Dr)

Reading is a fundamental skill in language learning for learners to produce: write and speak the target language. In order to perform successfully in academic and professional settings, learners are required to learn new knowledge by reading and comprehending the written texts extensively and effectively. Nevertheless, poor reading literacy rate, performance and struggling readers are evidently some reading problems among second language learners and to better comprehend learners' difficulties this study explored learners' perceptions on their usage of metacognitive reading strategies. 109 undergraduates of a Malaysian university responded to the survey for this quantitative study. The study found that global reading strategies, problem solving strategies and support reading strategies were employed in reading tasks and the relationships between strategies were strong indicating that planning before reading, monitoring reading progress, solving issues and relying on support or help during reading are strategies used in reading tasks. Thus, this suggests that background knowledge or pre-reading activities and guidance are critical for learners to be able to complete reading activities well.

Dr. Abdul Malik Abbasi , Mansoor Channa

This paper reports the results of the research conducted to explore whether students learn reading comprehension more successfully using the different approaches based on strategies in reading texts. The study was conducted at QUEST, in Pakistan and the respondents were selected from four engineering departments. Data was collected through a set of questionnaire used as the qualitative instrument among 311 respondents. However, Questionnaire data was analyzed by using SPSS 17. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze research variables for producing the Percentages, Mean and Standard Deviation of the data. The findings of this study reported that this research investigated 18 categories of reading comprehension. The highest mean score in reading comprehension was for " read aloud practices " category (=2.40) rated by all respondents; while the mean score for " asking questions before, during, and after reading " (= 1.48) was the lowest. However, no category of reading comprehension fell into low level of usage. In short, results, discussion and recommendations are presented for developing effective reading strategies to design syllabus for the engineering students to improve their reading proficiency.

English Language Teaching

Ali Asgher Chandio

Jurnal Pendidikan Humaniora

Mikhael Misa

: This research aims to identify the implementation of metacognitive strategy to improve EFL of students’ reading comprehension of the English Department at University of Timor in an analytical exposition text. This research is Collaborative Classroom Action Research (CAR). The data were gained through field notes, students’ reading achievement and interview guide. The results showed that the implementation of metacognitive strategy improved the students’ skill in reading analytical expository text especially in determining topic sentence, main idea and supporting idea. The result also revealed that using metacognitive strategy could employ the significant improvement of the students’ reading comprehension skills of analytical exposition texts. Key Words : metacognitive strategy, reading comprehension, analytical expository text Abstrak : Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengidentifikasi pelaksanaan strategi metakognitif untuk meningkatkan EFL pemahaman bacaan oleh mahasiswa di Jurusa...

RELATED PAPERS

S K LOJİSTİK V S K Antalya Nakliye 0532 177 6829 Lojistik Ambar Evden Eve

K&K - Kultur og Klasse

Johan Rosdahl

Novel Approaches in Cancer Study

Mamta Thakur

Ahmed Shata

The American journal of otology

Robert Cowan

Emiliano Gordini

Semina: Ciências Agrárias

Flávio Menezes Rocha

Psychophysiology

Jasper Brener

Revista da ABRALIN

Karina Zendron da Cunha

vaikuntarao lakinani

Interiority

Ane Pilegaard

Scandinavian Political Studies

Trygve Ugland

Michael Elstob

Mehmet Özçelik

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences

Natalia Trayanova

EJOVOC : Electronic Journal of Vocational Colleges

Aygul Yanik

International Journal of Human Resource Studies

RASHEDUL ISLAM

Megh Thakkar

MOHAMED AHMED

Human Factors and Ergonomics in Manufacturing &amp; Service Industries

Vincent Conzola

Pankaj Varshney

Limnology and Freshwater Biology

L. Kravtsova

Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical

Jo chun Kim

Clodagh Armstrong Lynch

Journal of Nepal Medical Association

Karma Tenzin

See More Documents Like This

RELATED TOPICS

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

Reading print is better for comprehension, study finds

Leisure reading on paper helps with text comprehension better than reading on digital devices, according to a new study.

Driving the news: "The main conclusion is that leisure reading habits on screen are minimally related to reading comprehension," researchers at the University of Valencia found.

By the numbers: The researchers, who analyzed more than two dozen studies, said "the relationship between the frequency of reading printed texts and text comprehension is much higher (between 0.30 and 0.40) than what we found for leisure digital reading habits (0.05)."

• "This means, for example, that if a student spends 10 hours reading books on paper, their comprehension will probably be 6 to 8 times greater than if they read on digital devices for the same amount of time," study co-authors Cristina Vargas and Ladislao Salmerón said .

Of note: The study also found that as students get older, the relationship between recreational reading on digital devices and text comprehension improves.

Details: The researchers analyzed 25 studies on reading comprehension published between 2000 and 2022, with more than 450,000 participants.

• "One might have expected that reading for informational purposes (i.e., visiting Wikipedia or other educational websites; reading news, or reading e-books) would be much more positively related to comprehension, but this is not the case," one researcher said.
• The study was published earlier this week in the Review of Educational Research .

Go deeper: Attempts to ban books at public libraries surge at record levels

Get the rundown of the biggest stories of the day with Axios Daily Essentials.