על הרגלי הקריאה של סטודנטים בעידן הדיגיטלי

In 2017 Google celebrated its 20th anniversary. Twenty years of myriad changes in the accessibility of information and the availability of reading sources in all educational systems and in higher education in particular. With an eye to these changes, the current study explores the learning and reading habits of students and factors that shape these habits: social background, high school study record, academic studies, and the influence of teachers and parents. The questionnaire was completed by 772 undergraduate students from 37 academic institutions and 14 disciplines. The research findings indicate four patterns of learning habits: online technology-assisted study patterns, patterns that combine online-technological aspects with traditional study patterns, and study patterns that tend towards the traditional. The shaping of each of the study habits was found to be significantly linked to environmental influences of parents, teachers, and lecturers.In an era of social and technological change, the experience of academic studies will be different than that known from the traditional university. We must plan and prepare in order to maintain a competitive advantage in a market that is picking up momentum from year to year. Maintaining an advantage in a technologically-based market requires much more than simply “planting” materials in a website or transferring materials from a regular learning environment to a distance learning environment. The role of lecturers was found to have a stable and independent effect on the shaping of all learning patterns.Students report lecturers’ influence on shaping their learning and reading habits. In light of these findings, we recommend acting to enhance the teaching work of faculty members, with the aim of working with students on improving their reading skills in their disciplinary field, enhancing academic and critical reading (judgment and evaluation skills) as well as academic writing, strengthening students’ awareness of ethical and disciplinary rules – intellectual property, quoting rules, and maintaining a balance between online teaching technologies and traditional reading. Providing accessibility to academic texts through information systems at academic institutions is an efficient way of maintaining an active learning continuity between the lecturer and the students.