O processamento da leitura de textos impressos e digitais: uma experiência com alunos do ensino superior

Abstract

The present work sought to investigate whether there are differences in comprehension for texts that were presented in two ways: print/continuous and hypertextual/digital. In order to approach the issue, texts on a same given theme were selected, though they consisted of diverse textual genres. We assumed that every text is, per excellence, a hypertext, and that all reading is carried out hypertextually.Based on these precepts, the hypothesis was that the form for text presentation does not constitute a factor capable of interfering substantially in the act of reading, since the process of comprehension does not take place linearly. The experiment was done with students from the Letras course of a federal public university, which were divided into two groups. A group “A”, composed of four students, read the texts digitally. A second group, “B”, read the texts in print. The results evidenced slight differences, though of small significance, in the reading skills for hypertexts/digital texts versus print/continuum. However, a qualitative analysis of the answers provided during the experiment showed that these differences do not imply,necessarily, lack of comprehension of the texts read.