This holiday season, e-reading devices and ebooks will continue to be popular with students.

According to a recent survey conducted by PlayCollective and Digital Book World, “e-readers and ebooks will be among the hot technology gifts for kids during the 2014 holiday season,” said a press release.

The data for the survey was collected “through an online survey in October 2014 with parents of 2-13 year olds in the United States,” said the release. “An initial set of questions was asked of a national sample of 1,140 families, and then a subset of questions was asked of 752 e-reading families.”

“According to the survey, more than 45 percent of all parents with children between the ages of 2 and 13 plan to purchase a new device for their child to read ebooks this holiday season,” the release said.

“Those parents who already own a device, 50 percent are planning to purchase a new one this season, up 4 percent from last year, and more than half [58 percent] of these parents intend for the device to belong primarily to their child.”

The release said that the Kindle e-reader “is the device parents most intend to purchase this year [26 percent], perhaps because the growing variety of tablets has splintered the competition.”

“The Kindle Fire was the top choice for 2013, but the percentage of parents choosing the Fire has decreased from 29 percent to 12 percent, likely due to the introduction of the Kindle Fire HD [12 percent] and the Kindle Fire HD Kids Edition [17 percent],” the article said.

Kindle products, the study found, “are followed by non-iPad devices [14 percent], the iPad 4 [12 percent] and second-generation iPad Mini [12 percent], and a laptop or computer [12 percent]. Purchase intent is lowest for older-version iPads and non-Kindle designated e-readers.”

Three-quarters of parents who answered in the survey, “plan to purchase new ebooks for their children this holiday season, up 2 percent from last year. This increase in purchase intent indicates that digital gifts are becoming increasingly common.”

Article by Kassondra Granata, Education World Contributor