Bridging Culture and Cognition in Digital Health ESP: Effect of a Cognitive-Cultural Module on Analytical Reading Development

<ns4:p> Background Digital ESP instruction often emphasizes surface comprehension while insufficiently supporting higher-order analytical reading and culturally meaningful cognition. Digital ESP materials frequently prioritize surface-level understanding, with limited attention to cognitive depth and cultural relevance. Unlike conventional ESP digital interventions, the module integrates cognitive processing with cultural contextualization to stimulate higher-order analytical engagement. Methods This study investigates the impact of a culturally localized digital ESP module on analytical reading competence among undergraduate health students. Using a one-group pretest–posttest design conducted over 16 sessions, reading performance was analyzed across cognitive dimensions aligned with Bloom’s taxonomy (Brookhart, 2010; Halpern, 2014). Data were examined using Shapiro–Wilk tests, paired-samples t-tests, normalized gain (N-Gain), and effect size (Cohen’s d). Results Results revealed significant improvement in students’ analytical reading competence, <ns4:italic>t(</ns4:italic> 159) = 14.72, <ns4:italic>p</ns4:italic> &lt; .001, with a 95% confidence interval of [25.20, 33.10]. The intervention produced a large effect size ( <ns4:italic>d</ns4:italic> = 1.16) alongside a moderate-to-high normalized gain (N-Gain = 0.64). Gains were particularly pronounced in higher-order cognitive dimensions, especially analysis and evaluation. Compared to conventional digital reading interventions that commonly report moderate effects, these findings indicate that cultural contextualization may function as a cognitive catalyst by enhancing schema activation and higher-order processing. Conclusion The study contributes to ESP reading research by demonstrating that culturally grounded digital design can extend beyond comprehension toward cognitive transformation. It advances a cognitive-cultural framework positioning cultural contextualization as a central mechanism in higher-order digital reading development, showing that culturally contextualized digital ESP instruction can facilitate deeper analytical processing beyond conventional comprehension-oriented approaches. </ns4:p>