When struggling readers meet the screen – A secondary analysis of ePIRLS 2016 data

Despite past efforts to investigate how students' interactions with digital devices shape their digital reading comprehension skills, we still need more knowledge about struggling readers in digital reading contexts. Previous research has shown that digital reading comprehension is negatively associated with general digital device usage and positively associated with some academic digital reading activities in the general student population. We used data from ePIRLS 2016 to investigate whether such patterns are related differently to struggling and nonstruggling readers. For struggling readers, we found that digital reading comprehension was negatively associated with the general use of digital devices for schoolwork. There was no statistically significant relationship between academic digital reading activities and digital reading comprehension. In contrast, this relationship was positively associated with digital reading comprehension among nonstruggling readers. We discuss how typical digital classroom activities may be differently related to digital reading comprehension depending on students' print reading comprehension skills. • More knowledge on struggling readers’ digital reading comprehension in large scale assessments is needed. • Data from ePIRLS2016 was used to examine struggling readers. • General use of digital devices was negatively related to struggling readers' digital reading comprehension but attenuated for non-struggling peers. • Reading and finding information online was not related to struggling readers' digital reading comprehension but attenuated for non-struggling peers.