Technology has made audiobooks more accessible than ever, especially with the increasing prevalence of smartphones in everyday life. You can download audiobooks to your device and listen to them seamlessly anywhere, without interruptions related to having to flip over a cassette or change the CD. Even public libraries have digital audiobooks available to borrow for free, further increasing accessibility. People who are visually impaired, learning a new language, or have other reading or learning difficulties can benefit from having the option to listen to audiobooks, either alone or alongside text. However, for the average person, the accessibility of audiobooks also brings up the question whether listening to the audiobook is the same as reading the book – that is, does it count as reading the book if you listen to the audiobook instead?
To begin answering the question whether listening to the audiobook counts, we first need to define what we mean by audiobook. Jessica Moyer, an assistant professor in the School of Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin, defines audiobooks to be audio recordings of readings of printed text that are professionally narrated. In a 2011 study published in the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, Moyer investigated whether there were differences in comprehension scores and engagement or interest scores between three different modalities: (1) reading a physical book, (2) reading a digital book on an e-reader, such as a Kindle or Nook, or (3) listening to an audiobook. Participants in the study read 4-6 pages of a printed physical book and approximately the same number of pages of a digital book on an e-reader, and listened to about 10 minutes of an audiobook. In each modality, participants read or listened to a different book, and the modality order was randomized across participants. Analyses showed that there were no significant differences in comprehension across the three modalities, nor were there any significant differences in engagement or interest across the three modalities. These findings support the idea that listening to the audiobook counts as much as reading the text, either physical or digital, in terms of comprehension.
In addition to comprehension, what are the differences between listening to an audiobook and reading the text on retention? A study published on SAGE Open in 2016 provides a look at comprehension and retention of the preface and a chapter of a non-fiction book in adults. College educated participants were randomly assigned to three conditions: (1) listen to audiobook, (2) read e-text, or (3) listen to audiobook and read the e-text simultaneously of the selected portions of the non-fiction book, Unbroken. They administered comprehension tests to measure immediate comprehension of the material, and their results supported other findings that there is not a significant difference in comprehension between listening to the audiobook and reading the book. Researchers also explored whether there were any differences in gender between males and females, and there were not. When looking at retention two weeks later, participants in all of the three conditions retained similar amounts of information, consistent with the earlier comprehension results. Analyses also showed similar results for gender, with no significant differences in retention between males and females. In addition to supporting the earlier findings that listening to the audiobook is the same as reading the book when it comes to comprehension, the study takes it a step further to demonstrate that retention of the content is not impacted by modality either.
Don’t throw out all your books in favor of audiobooks yet! In their recent review of literature related to audiobooks, print, and comprehension published in the Educational Psychology Review, Anisha Singh and Patricia Alexander from the University of Maryland noted that their review resulted in their realization that whether listening to the audiobook is the same as reading the book is dependent on a number of conditions. One of these conditions is the genre of the book, which was observed to contribute to differences in comprehension in the reviewed studies. Studies comparing reading printed text and audiobooks by genre found that reading expository books led to better comprehension than listening to the audiobook, which contrasts earlier conclusions that there is not a significant difference in listening to the audiobook and reading the book. While audiobooks, used alone or in conjunction with a textbook, can be useful learning tools for secondary and college students with reading or learning concerns, the benefits of audiobooks for comprehension seem to be negligible for others. However, they argue that narrative books that tell a story are generally better suited to audiobooks than expository texts, which are mostly factual and impersonal, because the flow of a story facilitates comprehension.
These findings are informative, but it is important to note that many were controlled experiments and not really reflective of how most people actually engage with audiobooks in real life. How often does one sit and listen to an audiobook, without any distractions? Oftentimes we are engaged in another activity, like driving or doing housework, while listening to an audiobook. Daniel Willingham, a psychologist from the University of Virginia, notes in his New York Times Opinion piece that it is not possible to multitask, meaning we only get a general idea of the content when listening to the audiobook while performing other tasks, and miss the subtleties. This aligns with findings that narrative texts are better suited for audiobooks; we can fill in the details and still engage with a story even while distracted. So does listening to the audiobook “count”? Well, it seems clear that students probably should not buy audio textbooks to listen to instead of reading the text, but that listening to the audiobook is valuable for comprehension in some conditions. I leave you with a quote from Willingham’s article:
“Our richest experiences will come not from treating print and audio interchangeably, but from understanding the differences between them and figuring out how to use them to our advantage — all in the service of hearing what writers are actually trying to tell us.”
About the author: Kiran Brar is a doctoral student in Educational Psychology and a CISLL affiliate.
References
Moyer, J. E. (2011). What does it really mean to “read” a text? Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 55(3), 253–256. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41320378
Rogowsky, B. A., Calhoun, B. M., & Tallal, P. (2016). Does modality matter? The effects of reading, listening, and dual modality on comprehension. SAGE Open, 6(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244016669550
Singh, A., & Alexander, P. A. (2022). Audiobooks, print, and comprehension: What we know and what we need to know. Educational Psychology Review, 34(2), 677–715. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-021-09653-2
Willingham, D. T. (2018). Is listening to a book the same thing as reading it? New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/08/opinion/sunday/audiobooks-reading-cheating-listening.html
