While prior research has found that digital devices can prevent readers from absorbing text as well as the printed page, a new study counters that: researchers found that university students did equally well on reading comprehension tests when using both formats.
Announced Friday, research led by Jim Johnson of Indiana State University surveyed more than 200 students, with half of the students using an iPad 2 to read a textbook chapter while the other half read from a printed textbook chapter. Subjects then took an open-book quiz with eight easy and eight moderate questions on the chapter.