Evidence Shows Students Still Learn More Effectively From Print Textbooks Than Screens

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PATRICIA A. ALEXANDER AND LAUREN M. SINGER TRAKHMAN, THE CONVERSATION
8 APR 2018

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Given this trend, teachers, students, parents and policymakers might assume that students' familiarity and preference for technology translates into better learning outcomes.

But we've found that's not necessarily true.

As researchers in learning and text comprehension, our recent work has focused on the differences between reading print and digital media.

While new forms of classroom technology like digital textbooks are more accessible and portable, it would be wrong to assume that students will automatically be better served by digital reading simply because they prefer it.

Speed – at a cost

Our work has revealed a significant discrepancy. Students said they preferred and performed better when reading on screens. But their actual performance tended to suffer.
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more: https://www.sciencealert.com/do-students-learn-better-from-screens-or-print-textbooks-science-education?perpetual=yes&limitstart=1

[exboyfil]

1. This has been my contention for a long time

I had no hesitancy in getting the printed version of textbooks for my daughters instead of the electronic versions. The most ridiculous thing is trying to do Chemistry homework electronically. After that is engineering problems. Typically the kids printed out the problem and did it by hand before entering the numbers into the computer. Looking up information in a textbook for an engineering problem is much better.

Scientific American had a paper a few years ago about how early readers did better with the tactile feel of books over using a screen. Also from an eyestrain perspective, a standard tablet can be a problem. I do think Kindle e-ink make an acceptable substitute to a paperback, but I prefer, if I have a Kindle version, to use the text to speech feature anyway and multitask leaving reading on print media (comics, magazines, and some books).

It was something of a struggle with my younger daughter to convince her to sit at a desk to do her science and nursing homework. At least for nursing many of the relevant tests were done electronically so it made sense for her to learn in that fashion. She did use the textbooks more than other students - many of whom did not even bother to buy the textbook. She still carries around some of her books to study while she is working as nurse.