Factors affecting the reading habits of third-year-sociological students at Can Tho university

147 
HNUE JOURNAL OF SCIENCE DOI: 10.18173/2354-1067.2019-0141 
Educaitional Sciences, 2019, Volume 64, Issue 12, pp. 147-154 
This paper is available online at  
FACTORS AFFECTING THE READING HABITS 
OF THIRD-YEAR-SOCIOLOGICAL STUDENTS AT CAN THO UNIVERSITY 
Tran Thi Diem Can 
School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Can Tho University 
Abstract. Books are a treasure of knowledge, reading books helps readers to practice 
research skills, critical thinking, concentration to learn about the quintessence of mankind 
and perfect their personality. Moreover, reading books is the most effective and practical 
method of self-study that anyone can do. Practicing the reading habit will bring tremendous 
benefits. This study aimed to understand the current situation of students’ reading habits 
and identify the factors affecting the formation of reading habits. The research data were 
collected from 95 third-year-students of Sociology at Can Tho University (CTU). The 
research results showed that the majority of students reading books for learning purposes 
accounting for 28.7% of the total survey, and the level of reading with the frequency of 
every once in awhile accounting for a high proportion (43.2%). However, the number of 
books in a month that students have read in a month of one to two books (non-majored) 
accounting for the highest percentage. The research results also showed that there are five 
factors affecting students’reading habits, including learning environment, family, 
individuals, the internet resources and friends respectively. 
Keywords: Can Tho University, third-year-students, reading books, reading habits, 
sociology. 
1. Introduction 
The reading habits is no longer a strange topic, especially, the current audiovisual culture 
is growing and overwhelming the ancient reading culture. It is true that this has been 
attracting the attention of researchers about the reading culture as well as the reading habits of 
the modern society, that the object is often paid attention to is the pupils and students. There 
are numerous previous studies on reading habits of Vietnamese students. Most studies also 
showed that reading culture is has been encouraging in Vietnamese schools and most 
researchers always learn about and propose solutions aiming to develop a reading culture or 
reading habits for young Vietnamese people. Furthermore, there are several of related foreign 
research works. For example, McKool (2007), Factors that Influence the Decision to Read: An 
Investigation of Fifth Grade Students’ Out-of-School Reading Habits, the study briefly analyzed 
the factors that influence students’ reading decisions as well as reading habits outside of school. 
Oyewumi, Ebijuwa (2009), Effect of Reading Habits on the Academic Performance of Students: 
A Case Study of the Students of Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State, it is indicated 
that reading habits have an important influence on students’ learning outcomes, the study 
proposed some solutions to improve students’ reading habits and other research projects. 
Received November 11, 2019. Revised November 20, 2019. Accepted December 5, 2019. 
Contact Tran Thi Diem Can, e-mail address: ttdcan@ctu.edu.vn 
Tran Thi Diem Can 
148 
Reading books is an indispensable activity for everyone, especially for pupils and 
students. Reading books is considered an important part of the learning process because 
reading books not only helps students master the knowledge, skills, formation of the right 
career attitudes, but also helps students train their personality and morality. Another study 
confirmed that reading books is very important. For example, a person with a speech 
disability can become a good communicator, and a person with a leg injury can also acquire 
numerous knowledge through the reading book (Satija, 2002 cited by Nguyen Huu Viem 
2009). Reading books (especially specialized books) is essential in improving academic 
results according to the current credit training program. Most students have confirmed that 
reading books and reference materials are extremely necessary for them, especially to enter the 
college/university or pass exams. However, it is difficult to make them become lifelong readers, 
active and passionate readers. Reading habits is quite poor due to the following reasons, 
including limitation of school libraries on conditions, reading environments like outdated book 
collections, and most students read only impressive text and color materials. 
Besides, there are four major obstacles to promote the reading habits of current students. 
Firstly, the interests with friends, students prefer chatting together to focusing on reading books; 
Secondly, the interests with listening to music, students like listening to music than reading 
books; Thirdly, this is an attraction of media communication, students can spend a lot of time on 
seeing the information on med ...  9,2 
Expanding majored knowledge 19,9 
Expanding non-majored knowledge 19,1 
Means of entertainments 23 
Total 100 
(Source: Surveyed by author, 2019) 
2.2.2 Time of students’ reading 
Allocating a schedule is one of the basic steps to establishing a reading habit. It is true that 
setting a reasonable time will limit the interruption of reading time. Research results showed 
that students who choose to read books from 0 - 30 minutes / day accounted for 32,6%; from 31 
- 60 minutes / day accounted for 41,1%; from 61 - 90 minutes / day accounted for 14,7%; from 
Tran Thi Diem Can 
150 
91 - 120 minutes / day accounted for 6,3% and over 120 minutes or more accounted for 5,3%. It 
can be seen that most students here spend 30-60 minutes a day for reading books to accumulate 
knowledge. 
Surely, students have begun to be aware of reading books for the university output exams 
aiming to improve the results for themselves. However, the time for reading books from 30-
60 minutes is still quite low, students believed that just reading available lectures from 
teachers is enough for studying in the classes, and there are little reference books to other 
sources to know more about the lessons. Therefore, students are somewhat passive, and they 
do not spend time in learning about other sources of books. It can be seen that the practical 
research results are different from the research on students of the HCMC University of 
Technology. Technological students only spent time reading from 0 - 30 minutes/day whereas 
the percentage of sociological students at CTU reading books from 0 - 30 minutes/day 
accounted for lower compared with 61 - 90 minutes/ day (Nguyen Thuy Quynh Loan, Vo 
Hoang Duy, 2012). On the other hand, the time of students is also influenced by many 
different factors, in addition to studying; students also have to participate in collective 
activities of schools, foreign language classes as well as part-time jobs. So, the time available 
for reading is limited and the time for reading is shortened (Table 2). 
Table 2. Time for reading books per day of students 
Time for reading books Proportion (%) 
0 – 30 minutes/day 32,6 
31 – 60 minutes/day 41,1 
61 – 90 minutes/day 14,7 
91 – 120 minutes/day 6,3 
Over 120 or more minutes/day 5,3 
Total 100 
(Source: Surveyed by the author, 2019) 
2.2.3. The levels of students’reading books 
The study survey was conducted with likert scale of five levels. There were five levels of 
students’reading books from the lower level to highest level, including Never, Rarely, Every 
once in a while, Often and Very often. The research results figured out that students who offered 
the level of reading as never accounted for 5.3%; rarely accounted for 20%; every once in a 
while accounted for 43,2%; often accounted for 24,2% and very often accounted for 7,4%. 
Table 3. The levels of students’reading books 
Level of reading books Proportion (%) 
Never 5,3 
Rarely 20 
Every once in awhile 43,2 
Often 24,2 
Very often 7,4 
Total 100 
(Source: Surveyed by the author, 2019) 
Factors affecting the reading habits of third-year Sociological students at Can Tho University 
151 
Most sociological students at CTU have been aware that reading books is a key work in the 
final examinations as well as output university examinations. So several students have 
somewhat restricted their part-time jobs or participated in other volunteer activities in order to 
focus more on reading books at the level of often aiming to improve specialized knowledge 
along with knowledge in other fields, etc to achieve the best graduate results. 
2.2.4. The number of books read by students per month (Non-majored books) 
Research results indicated that the sociological students who did not read books in a month 
is 5,3% of total students surveyed; the students choose 1-2 books to read per month, accounting 
for 72,6%; over 2-3 books/month accounting for 17,9% and 4 books or more accounted for 
4,2% respectively. From the practical results, it can be seen that students have spent a little time 
for reading books; in fact, almost students read one to two books in a month according to the 
survey. Students only focus on the information on social networks or the Internet, little or not 
even buying and reading books for themselves. The majored knowledge is only based on 
available documents, books and textbooks of teachers provided; there is so little practical 
knowledge. The actual results showed that there is a similarity with the study showing that the 
majority of students are moderate readers, reading 1-2 books a month and the habit of reading is 
less focused on development (Allen, 1993). 
 On the other hand, the current book market is becoming more diverse and rich in both 
content and form, making it difficult to choose a book to suit individual needs. The appearance 
of a group of people who follow the movement to read books without selecting appropriate 
content, as the results, readers can not acquire the whole mind of the author. In other words, the 
lack of reading skills also limits the selection of useful information from books. So, the number 
of books read hasnot increased. 
Table 4. The number of books read per month (Non-majored books) 
The number of books Proportion (%) 
No reading books 5,3 
1 – 2 book(s)/month 72,6 
Over 2 – 3 books/month 17,9 
4 or more books/month 4,2 
Total 100 
(Source: Surveyed by the author, 2019) 
2.2.5. Factors affecting of students’ reading habits 
Through the results of factor analysis, there are five factors that affect students’ reading 
habits as a family (FAM); learning environments (LE); individuals (IND); internet sources 
(INT) and friends (FRI). 
In the context of an increasingly developing country, human resources are required to 
meet the needs of modern development. Therefore, the quality of training is being focused 
and improved, requiring students to increasingly improve themselves in many aspects, to 
update the latest scientific knowledge suited to context. The ability to access to the 
information sources accurately and effectively in the subject, books are the means and the 
most effective tool that every individual can easily own. Reading purposes included in the 
study also showed that most students read for academic purposes. The development of 
modern technology, the common use of smart phones as well as the proliferation of the 
internet system, electronic websites have had a significant impact on reading habits of 
students in particular and all people in general. 
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152 
Most students often search for the information of studying through websites because it 
saves time and has high convenience. The wifi is available everywhere that students only need 
a phone to find the source of information immediately, so there also is a limitation of 
accessing to book resources of students. Besides, the awareness of each individual student 
also affects the form of reading habits as well as the importance of reading. On the other 
hand, the interest in specialization that enhances the spirit of exploration, learning and 
thinking development for the field of study, it will become a motivation for students to learn 
about endless sources of books. 
Another influential factor derived from the students themselves is that the ability to read 
and write information, students themselves can not filter information, capture the contents of 
the book offered, it is lead to easily feel bored and give up reading habits. Furthermore, the 
family’s reading tradition is also one of the factors that influence the process of forming 
students’ reading habits. The family education is considered as the basic educational 
environment for forming habits, behaviors in other environments such as school, society and 
so on. The family maintains the reading habits that will be formed for family members 
offering a similar habit. 
Besides the above factors, friends are also the factor affecting reading habits, followed by 
the family and school environment, the development of each individual in social environment 
respectively. If students develop in a group of people where everyone has a habit of reading 
and loving reading, students will easily absorb and change themselves to integrate with that 
environment. Moreover, students also receive book recommendations from those around them 
without spending too much time to choose good and personal books. Conversely, if students 
develop in a group where their friends do not have the habits of reading, individuals will be 
caught up in other activities and skipped reading. 
Table 5. Results of multivariate regression analysis 
Factors Beta T Sig. VIF 
Constant - 4,933 0,000 - 
X1: Family 0,237 1,172 0,000* 3,851 
X2: Learning environments 0,248 1,447 0,000** 2,778 
X3: Individuals 0,072 0,567 0,001* 1,521 
X4: Internet sources - 0,168 1,302 0,000*** 1,574 
X5: Friends 0,116 0,693 0,000*** 2,655 
R2 adjusted coefficient 0,633 
(Source: Surveyed by the author, 2019) 
The factor analysis results were put into the correlation analysis among variables, it is clear 
that factors affecting student reading level are correlated with each independent variable, as well 
as among the independent variables to determine independence. Thus, between variables meet 
the conditions, and are given into the regression analysis. The regression model is as follows: 
Y = B0 + B1 FAM + B2 LE + B3 IND + B4 INT + B5 6FRI 
In particular, the student’s reading level is Y and dependent variable like FAM, LE, IND, 
INT and FRI are X1, X2, X3, X4, X5 respectively. 
The research results found that the VIF coefficient of the five independent variables is 
much smaller than 10, it meant that there is no multicollinearity phenomenon between the 
Factors affecting the reading habits of third-year Sociological students at Can Tho University 
153 
independent variables. For the 10% significance level, a total of five independent variables is 
statistically significant. In particular, independent variables such as Family (X1); Learning 
environments (X2); Individuals (X3); Friends (X5) have a positive effect and the Internet 
sources (X4) has an opposite effect with the reading habits of CTU students. With the 
adjusted R2 coefficient of 63,3%, it meant that 63,3% of the dependent variable of student 
reading level explained by five independent factors. From the above information, the 
regression equation proposed: 
Y = 0.237FAM* + 0.248LE** + 0,072IND* - 0.168INT*** + 0.116FRI*** 
According to beta coefficient, the greater the coefficient of factor, the greater the degree 
of effect on the dependent variable Y (Hoang Trong, Chu Nguyen Mong Ngoc, 2008). In 
particular, the learning environments with beta coefficient is 0.248; the family as 0.237; 
individuals as 0.072; the internet sources as 0.168 and friends as 0.116. From the above 
results, the factor of the learning environments has the strongest impact on the reading habits 
of third-year sociological students at CTU. Academic performance as well as learning 
outcomes is considered as motivation to inspire the process of forming students’reading 
habits. In addition, factors such as family, individuals, the internet resources and friends also 
have an influence on the reading habits of students respectively. 
3. Conclusions 
The research results of students’ reading habits of third-year-sociological students at CTU 
showed that students’ reading purposes are mostly focused on learning purposes. However, the 
time and the reading level of students are also in the relative range. It meant that students have 
not really spent much time on reading, and the number of books that students have read in a 
month of one to two books (non-majored), accounting for a high percentage. Moreover, there 
are a number of students who do not read any books a month. In addition, the study also pointed 
out five factors affecting the reading habits of sociology students at CTU. Among them, the 
learning environments has the strongest impact, and family, individuals, the internet resources 
and friends are also factors that influence students’ reading habits respectively. 
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