Abstract

It has been argued that gender might affect users’ attitudes towards electronic media and their academic performance. The accuracy of such claims can affect the use of new technologies in leaning. This study examines gender differences in a hypertext environment. The study focuses on text based electronic documents. The study uses the think-aloud method. Forty two participants (30 males & 12 females) read the hypertext and then, all answered the same set of questions. The experimental hypothesis suggests that gender differences on learning, IT literacy, and visuo-spatial abilities might affect hypertext reading. The results show that gender does not influence reading times, comprehension scores, reading strategies, and the amount of visited links. Additionally, coherence, and selection of hyperlink based on their location seem to be equally important for both genders.

Citation

Protopsaltis, A. & Bouki, V. (2008). Does Gender Matter in Hypertext Reading?. In J. Luca & E. Weippl (Eds.), Proceedings of ED-MEDIA 2008--World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications (pp. 1120-1129). Vienna, Austria: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved June 1, 2023 from https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/28530/.

© 2008 Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE)

Keywords

• Gender
• gender differences
• hypertext