Books or technology?
Laura Burns and Freya Read
Our research question:
What do children in Year 5 and 7
think about electronic books?
Technology is changing fast. Books are now available
in electronic form and we wanted to find out if
electronic books were rivalling printed ones and what
children’s opinions on them were.
Our Research
56
participants
Years 5
and 7
Age range:
9-12
Questionnaires
Interviews
o We gave out questionnaires and consent forms to 1
form in Year 5 and 1 form in Year 7.
o We interviewed 9 students, also from Year 5 and 7.
Research Ethics
We made sure our research was 100% ethical.
Firstly we gained informed consent from all of our
research participants. We did this by giving out
consent forms with the questionnaire. Additionally,
those participants who were involved in an interview
completed a consent form.
The responses were kept anonymous and confidential,
the results were not shared and were only used for the
purpose of our research.
Interviews
Our interview questions were:
• What do you think about electronic books?
• Do you think libraries should have electronic books
to read from and why?
• Do you think it is easier to read from a printed book
or an electronic book?
• Would you rather buy 100 books or a Kindle with 100
books on it?
We expanded on these questions in relation to the
answers we were given.
Thematic analysis of interviews
We used coding to group key points from our
interviews into separate sections of information, for
example:
•
•
•
•
Practicality
Long Lasting
System Failures
Cost
Results from interviews: reasons
why people like electronic books
You can read
any book at any
time
Long lasting
(1 response)
Practical
(6 responses)
You don’t
loose your
page
Handy to
keep around
The pages
don’t fall out
Lights up
Comfortable
(2 responses)
You can
enlarge the
text
Results from interviews: reasons why
people don’t like electronic books
Memory can be
deleted
Cost/value
(2 responses)
System failure
Waste of
money
(11 responses)
Breaks
easily
Battery can
run out
It can damage
your eyes
Uncomfortable
(2 responses)
The writing
is too small
Results from interviews: reasons why
people do and don’t like printed books
Cost/value
(1 response)
Book damage
(3 responses)
Pages get stuck
together
Less tempting
to steal
Impractical
(1 response)
Smell nice
They take up
a lot of space
Aesthetics
(3 responses)
We asked: Would you rather buy 100
books or a Kindle with 100 books on it
and why?
Easier to
carry
100 books
Kindle with 100 books
Very light
Don’t know
You can read
any book at any
time
Printed
books seem
more real
Kindles can
damage your
eyes
Do you prefer electronic books to
printed books?
Don’t know
Don’t prefer
This graph shows that
55% of the students we
asked prefer electronic
books. 70% of Year 7s
prefer electronic books
however only 42% of
Year 5s prefer
electronic books.
Yr7
Yr5
Prefer
0
5
10
15
20
Number of students
Number of pupils
One third of the students
never read electronic
books and surprisingly 3
children do not read
printed books. On
average people read
printed books about 6
times a week and
electronic books about 5
times a week.
How many times a week do Year 5 and 7 pupils in
Lincroft read books and electronic books
20
15
10
Printed book
5
Electronic book
0
0
1-2
3-4
5-6
7-8
9-10
How many times a week
10+
?
Don’t
know
87% of pupils from the Year 5 and 7
classes that we collected data from
had access to an electronic device
which they could read from.
Electronic devices used by Year 5 and 7 pupils at
Lincroft
Electronic devices
This bar chart shows a variety of
electronic devices that children used.
Many of which you can read books on.
PS3
Kindle
Tablet
Computer/laptop
ipad
Smartphone
ipod
0
What do you mainly use your
electronic device for?
Other
Books
female
Music
Male
Social
media
Games
5
10
15
10
15
Number of pupils
No
access
0
5
20
This graph shows that electronic
devices are mainly used for games,
social media and music.
Surprisingly relatively few people
use them for reading books.
Electronic books encourage you to
read more
This is a Likert scale
question.
The majority of the
students we asked agreed
with this statement.
I we did this research
project again we would try
to find out more about why
this is the case.
No answer
Stongly disagree
Disagree
Don’t know
Also in our interviews we
found that 56% of the same
pupils found electronic
books easier to read from
than printed books.
Agree
Strongly agree
0
5
10
Number of children
15
Evaluation
It all went really well and we want to thank Cindy and all
of our teachers, especially Mrs Doyle and Miss Smith.
Conclusion
We have analysed our interviews and questionnaires and finally
found out the answer to our question: What do children in Year
5 and 7 think about electronic books? The answer is that the
majority of people prefer electronic books. There was a small
difference between the age groups, with more year 5s preferring
printed books. Also, most people felt that electronic books
encourage you to read more.
Our Answer
From our research, we found out that 55% of
Year 5 and 7 pupils prefer electronic books to
printed books.
Reasons included:
• “They are more practical”
• “They are more comfortable to use”
• “They last longer”