Objective and perceived reading performance: an empirical study comparing reading media and methods

Despite the advancements in digital technologies, traditional reading approaches, such as reading on paper or employing oral reading, are often associated with high levels of reading performance (RP). This study aims to investigate potential differences in objective and perceived RP among 67 high-school students based on two factors: reading media (paper versus digital), and methods (silent versus oral). Objective RP captures performance outcomes such as reading comprehension, whereas perceived RP, reflects readers evaluation of reading experience including preference, convenience, and execrated comprehension. Our study shows that perceived RP is significantly higher when reading on paper compared to digital reading. In addition, perceived RP is higher during oral reading than silent reading. However, in terms of objective RP, non-significant difference was observed across reading media and methods. Taken together, these findings indicate that under controlled reading conditions, differences in reading strategies emerge primarily in readers’ subjective evaluations rather than in performance outcomes. These results underscore that evaluations of reading strategies cannot rely solely on performance metrics, highlighting the need to account for readers’ subjective assessments when interpreting reading outcomes.