An Empirical Study On The Effects Of Digital Reading Applications On Adult Distance Students'Reading Ability

This research aims to investigate the effect of digital reading programs on adult distance students' reading ability employing a quasi-experimental rearch approach.The research participants were 40 English major,post-diploma BA students of an institute of online education.a university in Beijing.The participants had used digital reading applications before the research.They were divided into experimental and control groups by systematic sampling methods.The two groups were asked to use the digital reading application-"MintReading" to assist their learning.There were teaching intervention for the experimental group such as online activities in WeChat smartphone work and off-line activities.The control group studied by themselves without any teaching intervention.After the experiment,a questionnaire was given,and interviews were conducted.The quantitive data were the results of the pretest and post-test,the data of the questionnaire,and the reading completion data of the participants.The qualitative data were the results of the interview.The data were analyzed through SPSS 19.0 program employing the T-test method.The research results showed that there were no significant statistical scores differences after the 6-week digital reading intervention,but that the reading completion data of the experimental group was better than the control group.Furthermore,the results of the questionnaire and the interview showed that most of them support this mode of teaching and they thought it was effective.However,like most informal learning,students' self-dicipline,coordination,and teachers' guidance are of vital importance.The study suggests implications for digital reading teaching methodologies and future research directions of digital reading teaching in China.