Abstract:

In recent years, at an international level, we have witnessed the migration of many educational systems towards "paperless classrooms", together with the gradual replacement of traditional paper-based teaching activities with new teaching methods mediated by the use of digital technologies. Writing and reading - both for classroom activities and for home study - increasingly reside in a digital environment and more and more often scroll across the screens of the students' devices. However, research investigating the cognitive and learning process implications of digital reading and writing is still at the outset and it is difficult to establish the long-term effects this transition may have on education and training. This is also because while investigating the evolution of reading and writing in the age of digitization a variety of heterogeneous aspects must be taken into consideration, including ergonomic, cognitive, attentional-perceptive, emotional-empathic, phenomenological and socio-cultural aspects. At the same time, the results provided by both international surveys (e.g. OECD; PIRLS) and by studies conducted at a national level, warn us about potential 'collateral' effects on the students’ performance produced by the intensive use of digital technology in class, and suggest to reconsider a series of issues related to the development of digital and non-digital skills and the "abandonment" of traditional reading and writing tools (e.g. handwriting). The study presented here falls within this research context. With the aim of consulting a group of students and teachers engaged in the use of new reading/writing devices, a survey was conducted involving all lower secondary school students of an Italian school, a member of the “Avanguardie Educative” (Educational Avant-gardes) school network, which aims to promote innovation in the Italian school system. Students (n. 138) were given an open-ended questionnaire to investigate a series of dimensions related to their reading and writing experiences supported by both digital and more traditional tools. The data were analyzed following the Grounded Theory coding procedures, in order to make sure that the concepts emerging from the analysis were strongly anchored in the students’ voices. The results of this first survey were subsequently integrated and enriched with those obtained through a series of focus groups with the students, followed by interviews with their teachers. The results of the investigation are here presented and discussed.

Keywords:

Digital reading, paper reading, school practices, grounded theory.