Books in the Student Environment: Preferences, Reading Activity and Impact on Academic Performance
Authors:   Yaroslavl State Pedagogical University, Talanov Sergei L. ,   Yaroslavl Regional Office of the Russian Society of Sociologists
Published: March 2023

The article analyzes reading skills, reading ability, erudition (knowledge of the studied works, understanding of literary concepts) and the ability to work with a book (definition and selection of books by genre, authors, topics), reading skills and abilities (perception, interpretation and evaluation of the work). For this purpose, diagnostic tasks and tests were used as part of the study. A sociological survey was conducted among students of leading universities in Central Federal District to determine their preferences, frequency and activity of reading. The relationship between reading frequency and academic performance was studied. It was found that preferences, frequency and activity of reading depend on family traditions, the level of education and education of the parents (or one of the parents), as well as on the influence of the reference personality (group). For students who have formed the skills and abilities of their own reading activity, developed reading and book skills, who consciously chose the direction of study and university, such students have high academic performance. Students who enrolled on the basis of whatever university and direction of study, for them books (reading) are a way of escaping reality (escapism, avoiding unpleasant, boring things in life). In addition, it has been established that for students from low-resource groups, books act as a prestigious element of social status, characterizing the level of education and education, which in reality does not exist not among parents, not among students. For this category of students, books are on the shelves as elements of social status, and not as tools with which you can improve your knowledge or take any behavioral models from the works for your daily practice. It has been established that girls mainly read foreign and domestic classics, and young men read historical, bibliographic books (Life of Remarkable People). Students from high-resource groups, when preparing for classes, primarily use the resources of their (parent) home library. Students from medium-resource and low-resource groups, when doing homework, writing essays, test papers, essays, use books from the university library. It was found that girls have a higher vocabulary, general knowledge and cultural awareness, as well as reading comprehension than boys. This is due to their love (sometimes habit) for systematic and purposeful reading. Students whose parents have higher education and high positions are able to search and find books necessary for development, and also have the habit of reading books. The higher the level of education of parents, the earlier they instill in their children a love of reading. Regular reading of short stories or novels outside of school leads to an increase in academic performance as part of university studies. Those who read paper books learn better than those who read digitized books on the Internet. Based on the results of the study, measures are proposed aimed at improving knowledge of the basics of grammar of the Russian language, expanding vocabulary, which is possible, first of all, through introducing students (youth) to the systematic reading of books.