“Do I need to read to do well?”: a post-pandemic case study of the reading habits and academic attainment of STEM and non-STEM students

Little is known about the reading habits and interests of college students in the post-pandemic environment, especially those of the understudied student populations of the Middle East. Thus, a convenient sample of female undergraduate students of Saudi Arabian descent was asked to report reading habits and interests. First, the study asked whether the responses of students organized by field of study (STEM versus non-STEM) differed. Then, it assessed the extent to which reading habits (as indexing reading comprehension skills) predicted college attainment (as measured by GPA) in each of the selected subsamples. Although habits and attitudes did not differ between STEM and non-STEM students, attitudes predicted reading habits differently for the two groups. Furthermore, habits and attitudes were better predictors of academic attainment for STEM than non-STEM learners. These findings underscored the need for institutions of higher education to carry out periodical assessments of their students’ reading habits and interests. Results can then inform library policies and instructional interventions that will benefit STEM students the most.