Is comprehension the same whether a person reads a text onscreen or on paper? And are listening to and viewing content as effective as reading the written word when covering the same material? The answers to both questions are often "no". The reasons relate to a variety of factors, including reduced concentration, an entertainment mindset and a tendency to multitask while consuming digital content.

When reading texts of several hundred words or more, learning is generally more successful when it's on paper than onscreen. A large amount of research confirms this finding. The benefits of print reading particularly shine through when experimenters move from posing simple tasks — like identifying the main idea in a reading passage — to ones that require mental abstraction — such as drawing inferences from a text.

The differences between print and digital reading results are partly related to paper's physical properties. With paper, there is a literal laying on of hands, along with the visual geography of distinct pages. People often link their memory of what they've read to how far into the book it was or where it was on the page.

But equally important is the mental aspect. Reading researchers have proposed a theory called "shallowing hypothesis ". According to this theory, people approach digital texts with a mindset suited to social media, which are often not so serious, and devote less mental effort than when they are reading print.

Audio and video can feel more engaging than text, and so university teachers increasingly turn to these technologies — say, assigning an online talk instead of an article by the same person. However, psychologists have demonstrated that when adults read news stories, they remember more of the content than if they listen to or view identical pieces.

Digital texts, audio and video all have educational roles, especially when providing resources not available in print. However, for maximizing learning where mental focus and reflection are called for, educators shouldn't assume all media are the same, even when they contain identical words.

Questions:
question_stem: What does the underlined phrase "shine through" in paragraph 2 mean?
choices: tag: A
text: Seem unlikely to last.

tag: B
text: Seem hard to explain.

tag: C
text: Become ready to use.

tag: D
text: Become easy to notice.
answer_key: A

question_stem: What does the shallowing hypothesis assume?
choices: tag: A
text: Readers treat digital texts lightly.

tag: B
text: Digital texts are simpler to understand.

tag: C
text: People select digital texts randomly.

tag: D
text: Digital texts are suitable for social media.
answer_key: A

question_stem: Why are audio and video increasingly used by university teachers?
choices: tag: A
text: They can hold students' attention.

tag: B
text: They are more convenient to prepare.

tag: C
text: They help develop advanced skills.

tag: D
text: They are more informative than text.
answer_key: A

question_stem: What does the author imply in the last paragraph?
choices: tag: A
text: Students should apply multiple learning techniques.

tag: B
text: Teachers should produce their own teaching material.

tag: C
text: Print texts cannot be entirely replaced in education.

tag: D
text: Education outside the classroom cannot be ignored.
answer_key: C