Gender Patterns in Hypertext Reading

Abstract

Abstract:The effect of gender in learning has often been the focus of research because of its potential implications in academic achievement. However, the effect of gender in hypertext reading has not been thoroughly investigated. The Web in general and the hypertext in particular has modified the way people access and use information. This paper reports the findings of an empirical study into gender differences in hypertext reading. The study focuses on text-based electronic documents. The study is a mixed method design, with the use of the think-aloud protocols and a between subjects experiment. It examines some original variables not previously studied comprehensively, such as coherence of transactions, sum of selected hyperlinks, and hyperlink location. Forty two participants (30 males and 12 females) read a hierarchically structured hypertext and then, all answered the same set of questions. The data consisted of reading times, comprehension scores, reading strategies, coherent links, hyperlink location, sum of hyperlinks, and the sum of read nodes. The results show that gender did not significantly affect any of the measured variables.

Gender and information processing in electronic age

“…The fact that, two different methods were used in the two studies provides extra validity in the results. Similarly, other studies have revealed no significant difference in performance between genders [11,[16][17][18][19]. However, the current findings are in disagreement with other studies, some favouring males [39][40][41] and other favouring females [42,43].…”

“…Roy and Chi found that young males performed significantly higher than young females on both target-specific and target-related information measures [47]. Other researchers have found that females are more successful in Web-based learning [30], and others have found no difference between genders [11,[16][17][18][19], similar to the current study.…”

“…Another reason for such differences can be the fact that in the current study participants had to search for and read information in a restricted hypertext environment, whereas in the other studies participants had more freedom in using more than one Web documents. In a previous study [16,19], using the think-aloud method and the same hypertext we found that males had more extreme scores compare to females, although the difference was not significant. However, in the current study no such effect was observed.…”

“…It was also found that stereotype threat created a decrease in performance, which correlated to an increase in negative thoughts [15]. On top of that a number of studies found no difference between genders in various learning conditions [11,[16][17][18][19]. Research has also looked at the relation between gender Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page.…”

“…However, these studies shown mixed results. Some found that females are more successful in web-based learning [30], while others found that males performed better [31,32], and some others reported that there was no significant difference between genders in their learning ability [11,[16][17][18][19]. However, little is known about how users are able to make use of and learn from new technologies [33], and because of that there is a need for further research in the field in order to take full advantage of their use.…”