A Survey of Reading Behavior among College Students Majoring in Child Development or Early Childhood Education

The purpose of this study was to investigate the reading habits, reading patterns and reading motivation of 362 college students from the capital area majoring in child development or early childhood education. The main findings of this study were as follows. Firstly, 70 percent of students spent less than three hours a week on reading academic or school-related material, and 75 percent spent less than three hours a week on independent or recreational reading. Students most preferred reading the "cultural" genre and least preferred reading the "human life(spiritual)" genre. The "cultural" and the "human life(spiritual)" genres also represented the most and least frequently read genres, respectively. Secondly, students presented high-level reading patterns, in that they previewed the reading material before reading, understood the meaning of it during reading, and shared their reading experience with others after reading. Thirdly, the average reading motivation levels scored near the midpoint on a five-point scale. Fourthly, students with higher reading motivation levels displayed higher reading frequencies and preference levels for each genre, with the exception of the "fiction and humor" genre. Moreover, students with higher levels of reading motivation received higher ratings for their reading patterns.