DIGITAL ACADEMIC READING CHALLENGES OF POSTGRADUATE INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS STUDYING IN UK

This paper considers a focus on the challenges facing postgraduate readers in becoming digitally strategy literate to determine the necessary solutions to any reading difficulties they encounter to comprehend academic text. Understanding the factors that demotivate readers to read on-screen would help researchers, educators and teachers to find suitable pedagogical solutions to enhance readers’ on-screen academic reading comprehension.

Think-aloud protocols followed by stimulated recalls with researcher’s field notes were conducted with international postgraduate students studying in a UK. Readers’ reading challenges and the ways in which they overcame them were analysed qualitatively and quantitively.

The findings demonstrate the various challenges affecting L2 readers’ experiences when reading academic text on-screen. Most readers were not aware of backup tools that could be used to assist with several reading comprehension problems, such as speeding up their reading, annotating or having a sense of using paper while reading on-screen. Thus, the study suggests competences and capabilities that are necessary to overcome on-screen reading comprehension challenges.