Books vs. Digital Materials: How to Decide Which Works Best for Your Contractor Licensing Exam Preparation

There are a lot of preparation materials you can use to get ready for the contractor licensing exam. But since every person is unique, there’s a high likelihood that you will show a preference for one type or another. If you’re not sure whether printed books or digital materials are best for your learning style, here’s how you can find out.

Storage Capability
One of the biggest reasons that people may prefer digital materials to printed reading materials is the space that printed materials occupies. For example, someone can have many varieties of books or guides contained in a smartphone, tablet, computer, or other reading devices. By comparison, someone who prefers printed materials must have the ability to keep them in a place where they are easy to find and unlikely to sustain damage. It all depends on what you have available for storage. In some cases, buying a few printed materials that you need to keep on a bookshelf is easier and less expensive than buying a device specifically for reading digital books.

Note-Taking Style
Your note-taking style significantly affects the types of materials that you gravitate toward. If you love to mark up the books that you buy with notes and additional explanations, you may find this more complicated to do in some digital formats. On the other hand, if you like the ability to categorize your notes in a way that you can search for them on a device, digital might be the best way to go. In this case, it’s worth investigating the capabilities of the devices that you might use for the digital materials before you buy one.

Consumption vs. Recall
Experts argue that there are reasons to prefer digital materials and reasons to prefer printed materials. The ability to recall information creates an interesting conflict the people may need to resolve when they make this choice. As a general rule, people who read digital materials will get through the material more quickly than someone reading it in print. On the other hand, someone who reads printed materials for comprehension is more likely to remember what they read, even if it takes longer. This indicates that there may be benefits to using digital materials in certain circumstances where speed is a factor, and printed materials where recall is paramount.

Digital Benefits
It’s not hard to imagine why many manufacturers and consumers of reading materials lean toward digital as the format of the future. You can hold much of the information available worldwide in the palm of your hand. It might not be as easy to read as a hardback book, but you can always adjust the font size or even the font type to work better for you. Additionally, many publishers of digital materials take advantage of electronic resources for further information. For example, you may see an unfamiliar term and be able to click on it for an instant definition, instead of having to look it up separately.

Appreciating Print
Although digital reading material certainly seems to be continually picking up momentum over the past few decades, some people simply prefer print. Digital materials are often heavily reliant upon a particular format. You can’t necessarily buy a book intended for a Kindle and then read it on another device made by a competitor. By comparison, printed books are accessible as long as you can get your hands on them. For reference books you intend to keep that will continue to stay relevant, this may be the most practical approach.

Deciding which types of materials will be best for your contractor licensing education is an important task. By comparing your options, you’ll choose the one that works well for you. To learn more, visit CSLS today!