Youths tend to spend less and less time reading, although they still consider that they would like to read more. This dilemma is particularly interesting within the teaching of the Swedish language in school since reading fiction is a vital part of the subjects’ content.
Based on the result in the already done systematic literature study and the fact that Swedish school has become highly digitalized the aim of this study is to, from a student perspective, investigate whether audio books, and audio books in combination with paper books, could to any greater extent motivate upper secondary students on various programs to read fiction. Based on the essay's purpose, four questions are formulated:
I. How do students rate their general motivation for reading fiction?II. How do students see how their motivation to read fiction could be improved with the help of audio books?III. What advantages and disadvantages do students see with the use of paper books, audio books or a combination of these?IV. Can any differences be discerned between students studying on different programmes, and if so which?
A quantitative method is used through a digital survey where quantitative as well as qualitative questions are asked. A total of 71 students responded to the survey distributed among five different programs, the care and social care program, the social science program, the natural science program, the economics program, and the humanities program.
The result shows that student’s motivation to read fiction is relatively low, especially among students studying the natural science program. Almost half of all respondents believe that paper books are the best form of reading but many of the students believe that the use of audio books could increase their motivation to read. Many students also believe that a combination of paper book and audio book can increase the motivation to read, especially among students studying the social science program. Regarding the advantages and disadvantages of different forms of reading four themes can be distinguished, advantages and disadvantages of: concentration, reading and language training, interpretation and things that concern practical circumstances. The result indicates that the preferred way of consuming books is by personal preferences since students can use the same argument for different options.
The result is analyzed based on Jack Mezirow's theory of transformative learning. This theoretical framework involves an attempt to apply ten different phases for a transformative learning to the study's results. All phases are not able to be applied to the result, but the theory is still considered suitable.
2023.
quantitative survey, Swedish didactics, upper secondary education, reading, fiction, motivation, audiobook