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A Research on Reading Habits of Selçuk University Students
Orhan Ahmet Şener1
Abstract: In our country where young and dynamic population is increasing every year, reading habits which are in line with education level have become necessary in terms of the individual and societal point of view. Particularly, it is necessary for the university students, who are an important mass, to read enough, constantly and regularly to understand what they read, interpret and analyze and to give direction to the thoughts. In this regard, the purpose of the research is to determine the level of reading of the students studying at Selçuk University. In this context, a questionnaire consisting of total 25 questions prepared by the researcher was used with 500 students from various faculties of the university. And the results of the conducted application were analyzed in the SPSS15.0 program.
Keywords: Reading Habits; University Students; Education Level; Level of Reading
1. Introduction
It is no longer a hobby to read books in order to keep up and adapt to the innovations that come to life in our world where science and technology have developed at rapid pace, and has become a necessity. (Arslan, Çelik & Çelik, 2009) Thousands of articles are written every day on various topics and these articles are quickly introduced to the readers by means of newspapers, magazines, books and so on together with the development of the communication technologies. It is becoming compulsory for individuals to be aware of the complex and ever- renewing information, ideas and innovations and to be able to give them meaning.
(Tel et al., 2007)
1 Senior Lecturer, PhD, Faculty of Sports Sciences, Selçuk University, Konya, Turkey, Address:
Ardıçlı Mahallesi, İsmetpaşa Cad., 42250 Selçuklu/Konya, Turkey, Tel.: +90 332 241 00 41, Corresponding author: [email protected].
AUDRI, Vol. 10, no 2/2017, pp. 91-103
The healthiest way to increase knowledge consumption and follow up innovations for social development is to provide constant and regular reading habits to the individuals building the society. (Özbay et al., 2008) According to Gömleksiz (2004), it is an important factor to educate creative individuals who can get out of the ordinary situations and think different as well as the ones whose intellectual competences are developed.
Although Korkmaz (2001, September 17) has stated in his study that the places where most of the books are read are universities, he has stated that they remain very low in here as well.
In his research, İpsiroglu (1997) found that the majority of the young people do not read, not understand what they read, cannot express what they have read and understood.
In the survey conducted by Eskin and Montenegro (2000) on university youth, it was found that 92% of the students do not read adequately, 49% of them read most during academic education years, but they did not acquire reading habits and 47%
of them read books dealing with social problems, 9% of them read political contented books and 8% read religious books.
Reading habits of young people in developing countries like Turkey are an important step towards creating a conscious and developed society. (Gönen, Öncü
& Işıtan, 2004)
The aim of this research is to learn the levels of reading habits of Selçuk University students and to determine how they can develop these habits.
The research doing is necessary for comparing and interpreting the results with the similar research.
2. Method
A total of 500 students, 266 girls and 234 boys, attending Selcuk University Public Relations, Advertising, Business Administration, Physical Education Teacher Training, Turkish Language and Literature Department, Coaching Education, Justice, Social Services, Health Management and Sports Management departments have participated voluntarily.
A questionnaire prepared by the researcher was used as data collection tool. In the
93 statistical analysis, the obtained data were analyzed by SPSS (Statistical Package of Social Science) statistical software.
3. Findings
In this section, the answers given by the 500 students studying at Selçuk University to the questionnaire were evaluated. According to the information obtained from the data, participants’ reading habits were evaluated statistically.Table 2.
Distribution of participants participating in the survey according to age groups
According to the table 2, 33.4 percent of the participants were 17-20 years old, 48.0 percent were 21-23 years old and the remaining 18.6 percent were 25 or more, according to the age group of the participants.
Table 3. Participants’ leisure time situations
Recreation Total
Departments in the
Faculty I read
magazine, newspaper, ..etc.
I go to the
cinema I play
sports I listen
to music I surf on internet
Public Relations N 17 6 6 16 5 50
% 3,4 1,2 1,2 3,2 1,0 10,0
Advertising N 9 6 13 14 8 50
% 1,8 1,2 2,6 2,8 1,6 10,0
Business Administration
N 13 15 6 9 7 50
% 2,6 3,0 1,2 1,8 1,4 10,0
Physical Education Teacher Training
N 11 14 9 13 3 50
% 2,2 2,8 1,8 2,6 ,6 10,0
Turkish Language and
Literature N 18 15 7 8 2 50
% 3,6 3,0 1,4 1,6 ,4 10,0
Coaching N 13 12 15 9 1 50
% 2,6 2,4 3,0 1,8 ,2 10,0
Justice N 12 12 6 11 9 50
% 2,4 2,4 1,2 2,2 1,8 10,0
Social Service N 6 4 13 15 12 50
% 1,2 ,8 2,6 3,0 2,4 10,0
Health Management N 6 3 15 18 8 50
% 1,2 ,6 3,0 3,6 1,6 10,0
Sports Management N 2 6 25 13 4 50
% ,4 1,2 5,0 2,6 ,8 10,0
Total N 107 93 115 126 59 500
% 21,4 18,6 23,0 25,2 11,8 100,0
According to Table 3, 25.2% of them has responded that they listen to music, 23.0% play sports, 21.4% read newspapers and magazines etc., 18.6 percent go to cinema, and 11.8% surf on the internet when the participants who participated in the survey are examined how they spend their leisure time.
Generally speaking, it is seen that the answers of the respondents are close to each other and that only 11.8% of the respondents on the internet are less than the other
95 answers and this can be interpreted in the way that the university students tend to orient to more relaxed and motivated activities rather than surfing the internet.
Table 4. Participants’ newspaper reading frequency
When the frequency of reading the newspapers was examined, 38.8% of them answered sometimes, 21.8% frequently, 18.2% rarely, 13.4% always and 7,8%
never.
These values show that more than half of the university students (64.8 percent) are at a low level with reading habits. According to Table 4, 35.2% of the students have high-level newspaper reading habits whereas 7.8% of them have a negative quality in reading frequency.
Table 5. Participants’ book reading frequency
According to Table 5, when the Participants’ book reading frequency is examined, 30.8 percent of them answered frequently, 15.5 percent rarely, 12.0 percent always, 4.2 percent sometimes while 37.4 percent of the respondents give sometimes answers. More than half (57.2 percent) of the participants’ giving never, rarely, sometimes answers demonstrates that university students have a low reading habits. Only 42.8 per cent of the students answered always or often.
Considering that the place where the research is done is an educational institution like university, this value is quite thought-provokin.
97 Table 4. Participants’ reading frequency of sports
The participants’ responses to the reading frequency of sports field were respectively 29.8% always, 24.4% frequently, 16.8% sometimes, 16.8% rarely and 12.2% never. While more than half (54.2 percent) of the respondents gave a positive response such as always and frequently, low number of the students are seen to answer indicating a low level sports reading habit such as 16.8 percent rarely and sometimes, and 12.2 percent never
Table 7. The time the participants daily spare for reading
According to Table 7, 42.8 percent of the students are seen to answer they spent 1- 2 hours, 26.8 percent less than 1 hour, 23.0 percent 3-4 hours, 6.8 percent 5-6 hour response when the data related to daily spared time for reading. A large portion, such as about two-thirds of the obtained data, seems to spend less time reading than one hour, and a 6.8% response at the 5-6 hour option can be interpreted as having high-level reading habits.
99 Table 8. Article type which the Participants primarily read in Newspapers and
Magazines
When the answers of participants they gave related to the article type they read in the newspapers and magazines were examined, it is seen that 33.6% of them answered sports, 24.0% politics, 15.4% magazines, 12.6% economy, 10.6%
columns, 3.8% fortune. The most important part of the result, 33.6 percent, constituted the majority of the 5.4 percent sports management department. When the data obtained in Table 13 and Table 17 is examined, it can be interpreted that the students who participated in the survey have higher reading habits than the other fields.
Table 9. Percentage of people reading newspapers for entertainment and relaxation
39.8 percent of the students answered I agree to a question surveying the reason for reading of newspapers is entertainment and relaxing, 31.4 percent was undecided, 17.4 percent was totally agree, 8.4 percent was disagree, 3.0 percent was never agree. In general, 11.4 percent do not agree this situation and 31.4 percent are undecided about whether newspaper is a means of entertainment and relaxation while over half of the students (57.2 percent) see newspapers as means of entertainment and relaxation.
4. Discussion
1933 Dunlap studied the types of materials students read, the time they devoted to reading, the reasons for reading, the factors in book selection in his study on university students’ reading habits. The researchers found that fiction books were more preferred for the type of book that they spent more time reading the
101 newspapers and that the preliminary information about the writer was effective in the preference of the book and that the students provided the books mostly from the school libraries and friends. (Dunlap, 1933, p. 454)
1994 Dökmen studied the reading interests and habits of the university students. In the study of the researcher, it was found that the university students preferred reading the newspaper most, the students read 2.9 books and 3.8 magazines on average per month; and that spared 6,9 hours a week to read books and 6,9 hours to read newspapers and magazines; and that 69% of the students did not read enough books.
At the end of the survey conducted to 278 students who attended 9 Eylül University, Buca Education Faculty in 2003, it is found that a majority of the teacher candidates who were “medium” in terms of reading interest and who would model their students in the future have not enough reading habits. Only one fifth of them had seen themselves enough in reading issue. (Saracaloglu, Bozkurt & Selin, 2003, p. l55)
Firstly, the study of reading habits was conceptualized in the study conducted to the students attending to Ankara University, then the situation of reading habits in Turkey was revealed, and finally the results of the questionnaire survey conducted on Ankara University Undergraduate Students were evaluated. The revealed results have shown that during the course of higher education, students have improved reading skills, yet they do not have adequate reading habits. (Odabaş, Yonca Odabaş & Polat, 2008, p. 431)
At the end of the study conducted to determine the attitudes of the students of Pamukkale University, Department of Sport Sciences and Technology to reading habits and to examine whether there is a difference between the attitudes of the students according to gender and department variable, it is determined that difference between Physical Education Teacher Training and Coaching Education Departments is only of statistically significant in favor of the students in the teaching department according to the department variable, in the “love sub- dimension”. (Arslan, Çelik & Çelik, 2009, pp. l13-124) As a result of research conducted to determine the level of education and various characteristics of these habits in Hacettepe University, Faculty of Medicine and Bilkent University, Faculty of Fine Arts, Design and Architecture, it is found out that both university students have a poor reading habit. It is come out that students do not read
regularly and buy books they read more. It is seen that using the library is not an activity that students have carried out in connection with reading habits. (Yilmaz, Köse & Korkut, 2009, pp. 22-51) It is closely related to reading habits that students who are studying in universities are individuals who love to read, understand what they read, think and criticize. These concepts are developing in direct proportion to education. From this point of view, the aim of this research is to determine the level of reading of the students studying at Selçuk University. A survey of 500 students in the faculties of the university was carried out within this framework and the results of the surveys were analyzed in the SPSS 15.0 program.
The revealed results have shown that the students have no reading habits during higher education period.
5. Conclusions
It was observed that reading habits were mostly in the direction of reading newspapers in this study which was conducted to 500 students studying at Selçuk University. When we look at how participants spend their leisure time, it is seen that the answers given in general are close to each other and that only the internet surfing option is lower than the other options. We can interpret this in the sense that some of the university students have more time to relax and some activities require movement. When the participants’ reading frequency is examined, it is seen that the reading habits of the students are at a low level. When the reading periods of the students are examined, it was observed that majority of them spare less than an hour time to read according to the obtained data. This shows that regular and continuous reading habits do not exist when compared with the reading frequency of the students. These results support the view that students' reading levels are improving during higher education, whereas students do not have regular reading habits.
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