Polycode texts in university educational reading: Methodology for demand and effectiveness analysis (Article II)

Since complex polycode formations, simultaneously transmitting information through multiple channels, are increasingly substituting traditional educational texts, there arises a question whether such polycode texts are effective in university educational reading. The analysis and assessment of their demand and perception effectiveness requires new research methodologies. The research aims at testing the integrated use of quantitative and qualitative methods (surveys and focus groups) to study the demand and effectiveness of polycode texts for university students’ educational reading. The research is based on the concepts of polycode - primarily verbal-visual - text, their communications and ways of generating meanings by Marshall McLuhan, Roland Barthes, Hal Foster, Rudolf Arnheim, Will Eisner, Franjoise Barbe-Gall, Yury M. Lotman, Natalia V. Zlydneva, Maria K. Skaf, and others. The quantitative data were collected via an online questionnaire, while subjective perspectives were obtained via focus groups. The obtained data were considered as integrity and compared to identify their coincidences, contradictions, and correlations. The research has confirmed the hypothesis that an integrated approach to understanding and assessing the demand and effectiveness of polycode educational reading by university students provides the most reliable, valid data about the object and subject of research. The indicators obtained via the above methods, taken together and correlated with each other, are complementary and mutually adjusted; therefore, the integrated methodology gives a more well-grounded, more trustworthy, and broader picture of polycode text functioning in university education than those based on data collected via the above discussed methods separately. An integrated approach to the analysis and assessment of the demand and effectiveness of polycode educational text reading has never been applied in the Russian studies of polycode texts before. This attempt brought up the problem of students’ reading competencies for different types of educational content to comprehend the concept of the effectiveness of polycode educational reading by university students and identify its dependence both on the nature of the text and a number of other factors related to the skills of monocode text reading, visual literacy, and reader’s “cultural memory.” When compared, the survey and focus group results showed no direct correlation between the high demand for polycode texts and their effectiveness in university education. The identified reasons for the low effectiveness of polycode educational texts, which are so popular with students now, demonstrated the barriers faced by many students: (1) the lack of reading skills in at least one type of monocode educational text encumbers understanding and grasping the content of the polycode text embedded in it by its author; (2) the reader’s insufficient knowledge and cultural background prevents him/her from understanding any type of text, and first of all, structurally complex verbal-visual formations, requiring recoding of sign systems. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.

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