The Short Proposal:

1. The specific topic

Analyzing Students’ Preferred Delivery Method (Online vs In-Person) For Reading At
CSUMB
2. The purpose of your paper/research
This research focuses on as to why CSUMB undergraduate students’ reading skills are
week by looking into the implementation of Reading Apprenticeship online learning
activities in CST300 Writing Lab Course in the Spring 2018. In this course, students
learn writing, presentation, research, and critical-thinking skills and each one of the
modality requires the student to do a lot of reading. Therefore, it gives us a perfect
opportunity to find out difference between the activities that are done online and in
person to see what students prefer in terms of the delivery method to improve their
reading skills.
3. The intended audience
Junior-level Computer Science Students at CSUMB will be the target users.
4. Your voice as the writer and researcher - what is your interest or stake in this
research- do you have a connection or background in this area?
I am really interested in learning more about neuroscience of learning to know how
exactly we learn. Therefore, as a first step, I would like to learn whether students find
any difference between online and traditional reading methods. Apparently, the online
reading lacks the tactile experience which we get from the traditional books but when it
comes to substantial comprehension, I would like to know if it makes any difference if
we chose one or the other delivery tool. As the world continues to adapting to the fast-
paced technological inventions, the debate on the reading brain in the digital age has
taken the center stage to look for an answer to whether we are producing shallow
readers.

5. The preliminary thesis statement or hypothesis

CSUMB students’ reading skills are week because online delivery tools don’t help them
form a coherent mental map for the text they read as they prefer to read on their
computers or other devices. The tactile and physical experience, which we get from the
paper book, is essential for human brain to read deeper, retain better, and climb higher
intellectually.
6. Research questions - These are basic first thought questions you have about your
topic- they do not need to be fully developed- you will work on the development over the
next couple of weeks.
a) Which delivery method students prefer for in CSUMB reading class and why?
b) Do students learn better with one particular delivery method?
c) Do students feel like their reading skill is comparatively weaker and why?
d) Do students feel they retain more when you read paper-book?
e) Is tactile experience crucial for human brain to read deeper and retain better.