Strategic Text Processing Across Mediums: A Verbal Protocol Study

Using a sample of 116 Norwegian undergraduate readers in this experimental study, we investigated whether reading informational text on a tablet versus on paper would lead to differences with respect to strategic text processing and text comprehension. Strategic text processing was measured by means of verbal protocol analysis, and text comprehension was measured by means of postreading written products. Results were inconsistent with the shallowing hypothesis proposing that there are comprehension advantages for printed texts because digital texts are typically processed in a more shallow, superficial way. That is, we found no differences across the reading mediums with respect to strategic text processing or text comprehension. These results may suggest that there are boundaries to the shallowing hypothesis that are related to tasks, individual differences, and reading contexts. Such potential boundaries are discussed in light of the current findings, and suggestions for future research to clarify those boundaries are offered.