Fast and Slow: Using Spritz for Academic Study?

In an age of increasing digital reading it is interesting that University students’ are not adapting innovative technologies for academic study. This is even more surprising because today’s university students are purportedly digitally native keen to use new technologies in comfortable personal spaces but adhere to traditional paper when studying. There is a distinct paucity of research with respect to how students use technology for academic purposes, particularly independent study. This small-scale qualitative evaluation investigates how undergraduate students respond to a refined Rapid Serial Visual Presentation speed reading application called Spritz, which claims to significantly increase users’ ability to skim read and comprehend content effectively. We evaluated the tool and asked students to express which affordances they would forego to make the technology acceptable. The sample of students focused on those enrolled on a module about academic reading were introduced to Spritz (N = 55). Nine students agreed to take part in the trials. Participants used the Sprtizlet App which enables a reading speed of up to four hundred words a minute to perform reading tasks. The findings suggest the technology is acceptable for certain types of skim reading and scanning, but Spritz did not meet the varied requirements of the participants’’ academic study practices.