An investigation on the group differences on time spent in extracurricular reading revealed interesting, sometimes even surprising findings. First, in terms of the gender, quite different from the universal impression and findings of Blackwood et al’s study (1991), the female, on the average, does not spend more time on extracurricular reading than the male. Both national surveys indicate the mean amount of time spent on extracurricular reading of the male student is higher than the female with significant difference, even though the effect size is quite small. However, bigger discrepancy was found among males. A closer look at the student percentage distribution (see Table 3 & 4), one would find out that: while there is more percentage of males who do not engage in extracurricular reading at all; there is also bigger percentage of males being avid readers who read more than 10 hours per day on both surveys. Gallik (1999) has cited several studies conducted in the U. S. (Blackwood et al, 1991; MaCreath, 1975; Witty, 1961) to suggest that the relationship between gender and time spent recreational reading was well established: girls consistently read more than boys at every age studies. In Taiwan, Lin (2000) also found elementary school girls spent more time on reading extracurricular books, newspapers and magazines read than boys with significant difference (p=.05). Then, why do we found males to read more on the average than females across institutional types and college majors both for college freshmen and college juniors? Future research is needed to investigate the issue of developmental change and cultural difference on the effect of gender toward extracurricular reading habits.
Second, in terms of the parent educational level, while parental education is found not to be significantly related to amount of time spend reading in Blackwood et al.’s study (1991); we found, on both survey, there is a general pattern that the higher educational level of the parent, the higher average amount of time spent in extracurricular reading of the student (see Table 3 & 4).
Third, group differences among institutional types were examined for the first time in the literature. In Taiwan, there is a tendency for high school students with better academic performance to enter public rather than private institutions, both in the ordinary higher education system and in the technological higher education system. What we found were puzzling results that students from private institutions, which have students with lower academic competence, spent more time in extracurricular reading than students from public institutions for both ordinary and technological systems of higher learning institution, and for both college freshmen and juniors.
Since there was no self-reported college G.. P. A. on both surveyed as indicator for academic achievement, high school G. P. A. was utilized for the college freshman survey. A negative significant correlation (r=-0.13, p=.05) was found between high school G. P. A. and the amount of time spent on extracurricular reading for the college freshmen. A closer look at the average amount of time spent extracurricular reading at each level of the high school G. P. A. (under 60, 60-70, 70-80, 80-90, over 90), we have an interesting finding that, except for students whose G. P. A.
was over 90, the lower the level of high school G. P. A., the higher amount of time spent extracurricular reading in the college freshman year with M=1.90, 1.63, 1.49, 1.47 hours,
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respectively (see Table 3). Students who got G. P. A. over 90 reported the highest average amount of time spent extracurricular reading (M=2.17). We can imagine high school students with lower G. P. A. enter private institutions and stayed more enthusiastic readers. Yet, these findings seem to contradict to our common impression and also to results from Gallik’s (1999) study that a significant connection between academic achievement and the time college students spent reading for pleasure during vacation was found.
Finally, for studies done in the U. S., humanities majors are found to read more than engineering majors (Jeffries & Atkins, 1996); and education majors are found not to be avid readers (Applegate & Applegate, 2004). In our study, although there is discrepancy between the college freshman and the college junior surveys on the exact order in terms of the length of time spent extracurricular reading among 17 college majors, we can still observe consistency between them.
First, arts, architecture and tourism majors reported spent the most time on both surveys; it is our speculation that these majors are encouraged to read expansively outside the classroom textbooks.
Secondly, humanities majors indeed reported a higher the mean amount of time spent on extracurricular reading than the engineering majors, but no statistically significant difference was found. And finally, although the public might expect education major to be avid readers in order to influence their future students; this study found the situation to be opposite which echoed the results from Applegate & Applegate’s study (2004).
Reading interests
Our findings were consistent with Blackwood et al’s (1994) and Gallik’s (1999) studies on that newpapers and magzines were among the most popular materials read. On the other hand, while comic books were reported to be the least popular material read in Gallik’s (1999) study; we found this genre reported with medium population in our study, with ranking number four among seven for the college freshman survey, and number five among seven for college juniors. Our finding in some degree echoes the phenomenon of manga literacy as a popular culture among Japanese college students (Allen & Ingulsrud, 2003), especially for male students. Male students are found to be avid readers for comic-books/manga, for it ranked number 2 on the college freshmen survey, and number 3 on the college junior survey.
Conclusions
With the data from two national surveys in Taiwan, one on college freshmen and the other on college juniors, this study has found interesting findings regarding extracurricular reading habits of Taiwanese college students. First, although general patterns of group differences on time spent extracurricular reading between college freshmen and college juniors are consistent with each other, college juniors spent more time on extracurricular reading on the average than college freshmen did in our study. Second, quite different from the universal impression and findings from other studies, both national surveys indicate the female college students on the average did not spend more time on extracurricular reading than the male college students. Third, in terms of the institutional type, on both surveys, students from private institutions, usually with lower academic competence, spent
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more time in extracurricular reading than students from public institutions, for both ordinary and technological systems of higher learning institution in Taiwan. It was unfortunately that the self-reported college G. P. A. was not investigated on both surveys; otherwise, the relationship between time spent on extracurricular reading and academic achievement can be further examined.
Fourth, education majors indeed read among the least. And finally, newspapers, magazines, and best-sellers are the most popular reading materials in both surveys. The medium popularity of manga (or so-called comic books) in Taiwan, ranked number four among seven by college freshmen, and number five among seven by college juniors, echoes the phenomenon of manga literacy as a popular culture among Japanese college students in some degree. Manga was especially popular among male students in Taiwan.
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議題分析Ⅲ