Examining elementary school students' hypertextual reading processes


CAKMAK E., ALTUN A.

HACETTEPE UNIVERSITESI EGITIM FAKULTESI DERGISI-HACETTEPE UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF EDUCATION, sa.34, ss.63-74, 2008 (SSCI) identifier identifier

Özet

Hypertext is digitized, linear or nonlinear interactive texts, where readers have the options of chosing their own reading paths. As the Ministry of National Education put emphasis on introducing intemet technologies into classrooms, especially with the information technology classroom project, elemantary school students will be exposed to more and more hypertext enviroments, which offer media- rich reading enviroments. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the fifth and sixth graders' hypertextual reading process. A total of 45 fifth and sixth grade elementary school students participated in this study. A pre-test, post- test quasi experimental research design was applied. Data were collected through three instrurements, which are hypertext dissorientation scale, remembrance test, and reading-time logs. The results indicated that students percieved themselves as undecided about their dissorientation and no significant gender differences were observed. Secondly, the more time they spend on hypertext reading, the more they remembered and the less they felt dissoriented. Moreover, no gender difference was observed in their reading times.