Developing a Novel Questionnaire to Measure the Use of Support Reading Strategies Among High School Students

This study aimed to develop a novel questionnaire and provide preliminary psychometric evidence regarding high school students’ use of support reading strategies in both paper-based and digital contexts. Given the increasing prevalence of digital reading in educational settings, existing instruments—primarily developed for paper-based reading—may not fully capture the strategic adaptations required for on-screen comprehension. The newly developed questionnaire, based on the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI), consists of two parallel scales assessing strategy use across both formats. A sample of 189 high school students (ages 15–19) completed the questionnaire. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) suggested a five-factor structure accounting for 63.3% of the total variance. Reliability analysis yielded acceptable internal consistency in this sample, with a Cronbach’s alpha of .84 for the overall scale (paper: α = .73, digital: α = .71), indicating acceptable internal consistency. Paired-samples t -tests revealed significantly lower use of support strategies in digital reading compared to paper-based reading ( t (188) = 4.37, p  < .001, d  = 0.52). By means of multivariate analysis techniques (exploratory factor analysis, cluster analysis and SEM) possible relationships among the item groups were examined. The study contributes to the growing literature on digital literacy by offering a preliminary, self report instrument for exploring students’ support reading strategy use across print and digital media. Further validation with independent samples, confirmatory analyses, and external behavioral or performance-based criteria is needed before the questionnaire can be considered a fully validated assessment tool.