Preferences and Reasons of Teacher Candidates Why They Do/Do not Read

Abstract

In this study, the main and primary goal is to find out whether teacher candidates enjoy reading books or not and whether they prefer printed books or digital versions with the reasons behind these choices. Through the study, qualitative research method phenomenology is exercised. Sample group of the study is consisted of 178 Ahi Evran University Department of Education Primary School Teaching and Turkish Language and Literature program students selected through purposive sampling. All the data is acquired via open-ended interview forms. In these forms featured questions similar to;

“I enjoy/do not enjoy reading books, because…”

“I prefer reading digital books, because…”

“I prefer reading printed books, because…”

And the participants were requested to fill in the blanks.

The data is analyzed with content analysis method. As a result of the study, it is determined that more than half of the teacher candidates do not regularly read books, 10% of them do not enjoy reading books at all, approximately 85% prefer digital books over printed ones and nearly a quarter of them spend 20 minutes or more reading daily. Moreover, the teacher candidates that barely spend time for reading books do so because they allocate their free time to preparing themselves for the forthcoming exams.

Keywords: Book, reading, e-book, printed book, reading culture