The purpose of the study is to examine the effects of personal factors (print reading performance, gender, and reading confidence, and self-efficacy for computer use) and environmental factors (home resources for learning, digital devices in the home, and digital use) on digital reading performance in primary students. The data of 69507 fourth graders from 13 countries participating in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2016 were examined. Correlation and multiple regression analyses were conducted by the IEA IDB Analyzer software version 4. The results showed that print reading performance, reading confidence, self-efficacy for computer use, home resources for learning, digital devices in the home, and digital use as predictors, the regression line can explain 49%-73% the variation of digital reading performance. Print reading ability can explain 60% variance in digital reading performance, which suggested that processes readers use to comprehend digital text are similar to what is required to comprehend print text. It also suggested that digital reading requires a different set of skills from those required to read the print text. Most countries in the study, girls have outperformed boys in print reading and digital reading. When holding print reading performance constant across genders, gender gaps are no longer statistically significant. This means that digitalization does not exacerbate gender inequality. Home resources for learning can explain 14% and 16% variation respectively in digital and print reading performance. The indirect association (through the effect of home resources for learning on print reading skills) accounts for most of the variation, the direct association accounts for 0.6-2.3% of the variation. Increasing in reading confidence of 1 point could increase in the digital reading of 16 points while increasing in self-efficacy for computer use of 1 point, the increase in digital reading is only 4 points. This suggests the importance to boost students’ reading confidence. The relationship between digital use and digital reading skills varies across countries and the activities for which student use computers. What students do with ICT are more important than digital access to them.
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