Honduran university students:

their preferences and habits reading

Abstract

in the university setting, reading habits are beneficial for students; however, obstacles and negative perceptions towards reading still persist. Objective: to assess the possibility of establishing a dependent relationship between the various variables related to   reading habits and preferences and the categories defined for the student population. Methodology: a cross-sectional descriptive and correlational quantitative study was conducted with a sample of 412 university students. A self-administered questionnaire with 45 questions was used, covering the following variables: sociodemographic profiles, reading habits, reading preferences, effects of reading on academic performance and negative opinions about reading.  Results and discussion: although the response counts indicated certain tendencies among the variables, the chi-square tests revealed that the majority of the coefficients obtained did not fall below the critical value for each hypothesis; consequently, the null hypotheses could not be rejected. Conclusions: Some questions showed relationships between variables and categories, such as “I usually read the book in electronic version” and “I usually buy the book I will read” with the age of the students. This suggests that age influences the format of reading and buying books. However, other relationships were isolated and not evident. It is recommended that a complementary data collection instrument be used.