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Texts of our institutional lives: Studying the "Reading Transition" from high school to college: What are our students reading and why?
Abstract
The authors discuss a survey of reading practices that they administered to students at their home institution, the University of Arkansas, as well as logs that students at the school kept of their daily reading acts. An important finding was that, contrary to possible belief, students at this university are reading quite a bit, although they are not spending much time on materials assigned in their courses. The authors propose some methods for boosting students’ interest in academic texts, and they call for other institutions to conduct similar studies.
... As Nowacek (2011) suggests, much of our prior scholarship on writing knowledge transfer relies heavily on the assumption that transfer can be perceived and acknowledged by an instructor (or a researcher). Due to the invisibility of online reading practices (Jolliffe & Harl, 2008;D. Keller, 2013), when students transfer knowledge from reading in the extracurriculum that instructors may not even be aware of, we may remain unaware of a powerful form of writing knowledge transfer. ...
... However, the participants in this study reveal that in some cases, extracurricular reading may similarly contribute to students' writing development over time, especially as they transfer content knowledge learned through reading in the extracurriculum as a means of locating topics to write about in academic contexts. Because students' digital extracurricular reading practices typically remain invisible to instructors (Jolliffe & Harl, 2008;Keller, 2012), we still have much to learn about how students' extracurricular reading practices might influence their writing in academic contexts. ...
... As I have suggested above, research on students' digital extracurricular reading practices similarly suggests that much of the reading that students do outside of the classroom may remain invisible to instructors (Jolliffe & Harl, 2008;D. Keller, 2013). ...
This dissertation consists of four micro-case studies of intersectional feminist college students’ experiences with writing across digital extracurricular and academic domains. These micro-case studies were selected from a longitudinal study of eight students’ experiences. In response to ongoing questions about writing knowledge transfer generally and transfer between online and academic contexts more specifically, this study was designed to explore whether and how these writers made connections between digital extracurricular and academic contexts of writing. Data collection consisted of four interviews with eight participants over the course of two years and the ongoing collection of academic and online writing samples over the course of one academic year. Through the analysis of interview data, I present two main types of learning transfer across domains; the first type of learning transfer is also supported by analysis of students’ online writing. Through these micro-case studies, I shed light on two previously under-explored types of writing knowledge transfer across these domains, moving in both directions: the transfer (and transformation) of genre knowledge from academic contexts into digital extracurricular contexts, and the transfer of content knowledge forged through online reading into academic writing assignments. Participants in this study tended to confirm previous research suggesting that students generally compartmentalize their writing knowledge across these two domains. I illustrate this trend through a case study of a particularly salient example of such compartmentalization provided by the experiences of one participant, Nora. However, among the experiences of the four participants who served as focal cases for the analysis I present in this dissertation, there were two main exceptions to the compartmentalization trend. For example, in response to unprecedented online rhetorical situations, three participants in this study reported selecting and transforming prior academic genre knowledge by infusing it with multimodal elements to meet the demands of the new rhetorical situation. This cluster of findings suggests a previously unexplored relationship between antecedent genre uptake as articulated by Angela Rounsaville (2012), and what Kara Poe Alexander, Michael-John DePalma, and Jeffrey Ringer (2016) term “adaptive remediation,” thus putting in conversation two previously separate theories of writing knowledge transfer. Additionally, when faced with open-ended writing assignments in unfamiliar disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, all participants reported drawing on their expertise in intersectional feminism, forged in the digital extracurriculum, as a means of locating topics for academic writing assignments. Through two micro-case studies of writers enacting this strategy, I explore the relationship between reading, content knowledge, and writing knowledge transfer, an area that is as yet under-explored in the writing knowledge transfer literature. Together, these two sets of findings suggest that in some cases undergraduate writers may transfer writing knowledge across online and academic domains, and that they can demonstrate considerable resourcefulness when doing so: when faced with an unprecedented, unfamiliar, or ill-defined rhetorical situation in one domain, four participants in this study drew on resources from another domain (e.g., academic genre knowledge; extracurricular content knowledge) in order to support their performance. These participants’ experiences reinforce models of writing knowledge transfer that emphasize adaptation or transformation, and they also suggest that more sustained attention should be paid to the roles of digital extracurricular writing, multimodal composition, and reading in future transfer research.
... Baier et al. (2011) expressed that students find the current resources very appealing and thus the possibility of the odds that the student will read and do the assignment is increased. Jolliffe and Harl (2008) carried out a research on students' reading at both the secondary school and university levels. A portion of the research included analysing the opinions as well as statements of the students regarding reading for their university course. ...
... This shows that various elements affect whether a student enjoys reading, and also from a certain textbook or not. Jolliffe and Harl (2008) also discovered that when a text is particularly technology based, the student frequently interacts confidently with the text. The research further discovered that due to its multi-tasking capabilities while reading from a device, students prefer reading via technology. ...
... The regression analysis indicated that Attitude to use of e-textbooks has a positive effect on behavioural intent to the use e-textbooks (R 2 =.664) meaning attitude has a 66.4 per cent influence on a student's intention to use e-textbooks. The result of this hypothesis is in line with the study: Jolliffe and Harl (2008) also discovered that when a text is particularly technology based, the student frequently interacts confidently with the text. ...
The debate between using printed textbooks (traditional) or e-textbooks (digital textbooks) is ongoing in the educational sector. Students are often required to buy textbooks in order to complete a course in the university, and this textbook can either be printed or e-textbook. Students who are usually reluctant to read a printed text or electronic texts are not familiar with the advantages and disadvantages of each text, respectively. Thus, the absence of information prompts the students to employ only one kind of text either digital or printed. The purpose of this research was to investigate whether university students prefer printed textbooks or digital textbooks (e-textbooks). The importance of the research is to understand why students are making the decision to use either traditional textbooks or e-textbooks and what makes them develop these preferences. The benefits that will be derived from this research will help illustrate what the students feel about traditional (printed) and e-textbooks (digital) and the choices that go into making that decision. This article is based on a study that was conducted at a university based in Midrand, South Africa. The study applied the mixed methods to analyse the relationship between perceived ease of use (PEOU), perceived usefulness (PU), attitude (ATT), complexity (CMX) and compatibility (CMP) on Behavioural intention to use. Questionnaire was the main data collection tool from as sample of 80 third year students from the Information Technology department of the university in question. The overall result led to the conclusion that students prefer e-textbook to the printed textbook.
... The term academic preparedness is complex and involves several dimensions, such as 'being informed, making the right choices, having realistic expectations and being motivated' (Harvey et al., 2006). Some scholars argue that students enter higher education with weaker basic disciplinary skills than needed (for example, statistical skills for psychology studies) (Mulhern & Wylie, 2006), while others argue that beginner students show weak generic writing and reading skills (Jolliffe & Harl, 2008;McDaniel, 2014;van der Meer, 2012). Still others point to the importance of behavioural characteristics, such as academic perseverance (Farrington et al., 2012) for academic preparedness. ...
... Others argue for improving students' generic reading skills at upper-secondary school as a prerequisite for a smooth transition to higher education (Jolliffe & Harl, 2008;McDaniel, 2014;McKenna & Penner, 2013;Springer et al., 2014). These strategies might comprise the instruction of academic reading, defined as a conscious and active way to relate to a text with respect to a specific question (Roe, 2006). ...
This article explores beginner student and staff perspectives of study preparedness across higher education institutions and disciplines in Norway, focusing on writing, reading and aca-demic working skills. Drawing on focus group interviews among academic staff and students, findings show a certain academic unpreparedness by beginner students. Students apparently are not used to working hard or independently enough, struggling to read large text amounts, showing a lack of academic writing and reading skills. For hard-working stu-dents, findings show differences between non-selective and selective study programmes. Selective programmes, for exam-ple, law, seem to be more structured and aligned with upper- secondary school. Students in these programmes are a positively selected group, expected to be better prepared than their counterparts in open programmes. The article con-tributes to a combined perspective by students and staff on study preparedness across disciplines and institutions, with implications for further research and quality in higher education.
... The transition from school to college requires transition of a whole range of skills and abilities; perhaps reading tops these given that most college courses and their assignments are grounded on reading. According to Jolliffe and Harl (2008), the move from school to college entails "a transition to different types of reading, different amounts of reading and different approaches to success with reading" (p. 615). ...
... This emphasizes the void between the two settings and that the preparation students receive in school was not enough to equip them with the necessary skills before they attend university classes. Unfortunately, studies from various parts of the world have pointed to this "great divide" between secondary schools and higher education (Kirst & Venezia, 2001;Jolliffe & Harl, 2008). Kirst and Venezia (2001) describe how the lack of coordination between schools on one hand and the post secondary sector on the other impedes successful transition between the two systems and call to open more channels of communication to help bridge this gap. ...
Using questionnaires administered to 1114 school students and 317 university foundation program students, the study aims to investigate students’ attitudes towards English as a foreign language (EFL) reading in the two educational contexts: post-basic schools and university foundation programs. The study also explores the extent to which students feel school has prepared them to the reading requirements of their university foundation programs. The study revealed that there were significant differences between school students and university foundation program students in the cognitive and affective dimensions of reading attitude but there were no significant differences in behavioural attitudes. Students also believed that they could not transfer the reading skills they acquired at post-basic education to the English classes at the foundation program because reading is different in the two educational contexts. The study makes a number of pedagogic and administrative recommendations to help bridge the gap between EFL reading in schools and universities.
... Research has examined reading pleasure in children (Organization for Economic Cooperative Development [OECD], 2011); high school and college students (Jolliffe & Hari, 2008); and adults with intellectual disabilities (Forts & Luckasson, 2011). Based on a broad international data set collected in 2000 and 2009, which looked at child participants, a strong correlation was found between reading pleasure and skill (OECD, 2011). ...
... Based on a broad international data set collected in 2000 and 2009, which looked at child participants, a strong correlation was found between reading pleasure and skill (OECD, 2011). First year college students reported that they were much more engaged in reading practices for their own pleasure over academic reading practices (Jolliffe & Hari, 2008). Research shows a relationship between reading pleasure and reading practices for adults with intellectual disabilities (Forts & Luckasson, 2011). ...
Social science research often uses educational qualification as a signifier for characteristics such as abilities, earnings potential, and civic participationin adulthood. This study focused on two types of adult literacy students who were native speakers of English and identified words at the 3rd to 5th grade levels but differed in one key demographic identifier. One group had dropped out prior to attending high school while the other group had graduated from high school. Differences between the two groups were examined in terms of their underlying reading skills, employment, voter registration status, reading pleasure, self-perception of reading ability, print reading practices, and technology based reading practices. Results showed very few statistically
significant differences between the two groups. These findings suggest that for individuals who have
difficulty reading, higher educational qualification levels do not necessarily imply differences in other
characteristics. Implications for further research are discussed.
... The findings also confirmed through multiple regression and descriptive statistical analysis that pre-service teachers' reading habits have changed over the last decade from print materials to modern screens. However, these online features have the potential to reduce the amount of time that college students, including pre-service teachers, spend on conventional academic and extracurricular reading (Huang, 2013;Huang et al., 2014;Jolliffe & Harl, 2008;Mokhtari et al., 2009;National Survey of Student Engagement [NSSE], 2012). ...
... Exposure to and familiarity with social media sites and online platforms may lead pre-service teachers to prefer using multimodal texts and websites, rather than print books, for reference purposes (e.g., Huang et al., 2016;Foasberg, 2011;Ismail & Zainab, 2005). Thus, the amount of time spent reading for academic and extracurricular purposes today can be affected by the amount of time spent surfing online, using social media network sites (Ito et al., 2010;Jolliffe & Harl, 2008;Junco, 2012;Mokhtari et al., 2009;Noland, Price, Dake, & Telljohann, 2009). The descriptive statistical analyses also show that pre-service teachers' reading habits have changed over the last decade from studying in the traditional library to studying at home. ...
The purpose of this mixed method study was to investigate the reading practices of pre-service teachers in the United States. A total of 395 (38 male and 357 female) pre-service teachers completed a self-reported survey. In addition, 45 (10 males and 35 females) of the 395 voluntarily agreed to participate in interviews and classroom observations. These 45 participants were enrolled in three reading classes in the college of education at a mid-size public university; the classes' professors allowed the researcher to conduct class observations over the course of the semester. Quantitative results indicated that 38.4% of the pre-service teachers spent 1–4 hours weekly in academic reading (AR) and 19.5% of the respondents spent 1–4 hours per week in extracurricular reading (ER). Results also revealed that 25.7% of the participants spent zero hours weekly in AR and 46.5% of the participants spent zero hours in ER. Qualitative findings indicated that participants' part-time jobs, and social media use via smartphone reduced the amount of time that pre-service teachers dedicated to both academic and extracurricular reading.
... (Interview 3) An ability to ascertain the extent to which students really did or did not read their prescribed material is beyond the scope of this study. However, there seems to be a widespread perception in English departments in different countries that students do not read their prescribed material (Douglas et al., 2016;Jolliffe & Harl, 2008). Furthermore, drawing on research done in the United States, Jolliffe and Harl (2008, p. 599) explain that an array of national surveys and studies suggests that neither high school nor college students spend much time preparing for class, the central activity of which we presume to be reading assigned articles, chapters, and books. ...
This study explored the kinds of knowledge, ways of knowing and ways of being that are valued in English literary studies. It did so by providing an analysis of what was needed to succeed in a specific English literary studies curriculum. The study used the Specialisation dimension of Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) to investigate what is legitimated in an English literature curriculum at the University of South Africa (UNISA) across three years of undergraduate study. The purpose of this analysis was twofold. Firstly, it aimed to make the academic literacy practices of English literary studies more explicit in order to inform pedagogy intended to enable epistemological and ontological access to the discipline. Secondly, the study aimed to facilitate critiques of the curriculum from a social justice perspective by finding ways to make the basis for legitimacy (the ways of being and knowing that are valued) in the curriculum more explicit to both the academics and the students.
The study found that English literary studies, as practised at UNISA, was underpinned by what LCT refers to as a ‘cultivated gaze’. This aligns with the findings of previous LCT studies that looked at English literary studies using the dimension of Specialisation. A discipline that is underpinned by a cultivated gaze requires students to exhibit a specific disposition that develops through immersion in the field over an extended period in order to be considered a legitimate knower. The study also found that two orientations within the cultivated gaze were legitimated in the curriculum: an aesthetic orientation and a socio-critical orientation. This finding adds to the previous research because it helps us to better understand the kinds of dispositions that are valued in English literary studies and how these dispositions are cultivated over time. In addition, the study found that neoliberal factors such as massification, managerialism and academic casualisation caused misalignments between the intended curriculum and the practices employed to teach and assess the curriculum. This placed particular limitations on one of the aims of the curriculum which was to cultivate a socially oriented criticality. This finding has implications for how we teach Humanities curricula that aim to develop critical citizens.
... The issues also might be related to student perception regarding academic reading as something as something painful and dull (Harl & Jolliffe, 2008). Others believe that many students do not understand the role of academic reading. ...
... Reading and studying is an art (Baker & Brown, 1984;Jolliffe & Harl, 2008); it is a fact that cannot be denied. Studying as one of the main pillars of learning has the basics and guidelines that need to be learned. ...
An effective study involves two factors. The first factor is interest in readable content, and application of techniques and study skills is the second factor. The interest in study leads to further study while further study with application of techniques and study skills makes study saster, more enjoyable, easier. As a result, the reader's interest in the content increases and causes to study further and do not refrain from studying and study more in less time. In this study, we present an effective study model between secondary school students in Bandar Abbas.
... MacMillan and Rosenblatt (2015) define reading as a fundamental aspect of IL skills, confirming many earlier studies reporting the expected university reading level is substantially higher than high school reading level. For example, Jolliffe and Harl (2008) quoted this pertinent comment of one student involved in their research: ...
The aim of this paper is to explore how first-year university students at a regional university in Australia perceive and use Information Literacy (IL) as they transition from school to university. A survey method was used to gather data through pre- and post-intervention surveys with 1,333 first-year students enrolled in their first semester of study across all disciplines at the university. The study identified that between 25–35% of students did not enjoy reading, with many students preferring not to read. Students arrived at university with largely misguided confidence in their personal IL skills, especially the skills needed to meet the demands of university level coursework, with up to 47% of students unlikely to have experienced well-resourced libraries at school. The study concludes that implications for university teaching include gaining an early understanding of the IL skills students have when they arrive at university, and the explicit teaching of IL skills, given the identified impact of IL skills on student success and retention rates.
... Studies have shown, for example, that reading emails, social media posts, and digital texts has surpassed the use of paper-based reading materials (Chauhan & Lal, 2012;Huang, Capps, Blacklock, & Garza, 2014;Mangen, Walgermo, & Brønnick, 2013;Shen, 2006). Furthermore, research on the reading habits of college students indicates a preference for pleasure reading that involves email and social media (Jolliffe & Harl, 2008). This trend has led to a variety of social and educational changes, including an increase in online textbooks to appeal to students' consumption of digital reading materials (Feldstein, et al., 2012), the use of motivational emails to increase student engagement in online courses (Inkelaar & Simpson, 2015) and a blurring of the boundary between work and personal time (Stawarz, Cox, Bird, & Benedyk, 2013). ...
Reading is a basic skill that is needed for academic success and employment opportunity. Aliteracy, or the lack of a reading habit, and lower motivation to read, are problems at the university level, especially among ethnically diverse adults. Reading self-efficacy is associated with reading comprehension, word reading, foreign language learning and the use of reading strategies. Given that ethnic identity has been linked to well-being and an improved sense of competence among minoritized adults, the present study sought to investigate the connection between reading self-efficacy and ethnic identity as well as the reading practices of African American and Hispanic American adults. Results revealed that ethnic identity, ethnicity, and home language explained a statistically significant amount of variance in reading self-efficacy. Similarities and differences in reading choices based on gender were also investigated.
... Academics and librarians in higher education have a shared expectation of students: that they should read widely to develop as independent learners, with some arguing that reading is the most important focus of the undergraduate experience. 1 However, Jolliffe and Harl suggest that patterns of student reading often do not reflect these expectations. 2 Lived experience from one of the researchers in our study bears out this mismatch between staff expectation and the reality of undergraduate learning behaviour, repeatedly having to issue the same feedback to students on their assignments, 'you need to read more widely'. Further, earlier research conducted by one of the researchers had highlighted that students often perceived reading as a pleasurable and nostalgic activity from their childhood, rather than as a key academic activity. ...
It seems logical to those of us working in higher education that students need to read for their degrees. Yet both research and practical experience indicates this is not so obvious to students themselves. Even when students do understand the importance of reading, they may experience challenges in engaging with it, whether through physical or learning disabilities, or ‘time poverty’ (working long hours, commuting or care responsibilities). This article outlines a collaborative research project undertaken between Library Services and the School of Education at the University of Worcester aiming to address these issues. It utilized a Universal Design for Learning approach to enable all students to access reading materials in a variety of formats using accessibility tools. Our results explore how both students and staff have engaged with these tools and the impact on their learning and teaching experiences.
... Across domains, students may be asked to read journal articles, policy memos, and blog posts in the popular press (Oliveras, M arquez, and Sanmart ı 2013; Reinertsen and DaCruz 1996). Constituting a reading transition (Jolliffe and Harl 2008), college may be the first time that many students are required to read disciplinary texts beyond their textbooks, as well as the first time that students are confronted with controversial or conflicting texts (Rouet et al. 1996) and with expert-level texts (e.g., journal articles) not written with a student audience in mind. Further, while students have been found to be attuned to differences among various types of texts and their relative trustworthiness (e.g., blog posts versus textbooks, Bråten, Strømsø, and Britt 2009;Kim and Sin 2007;List, Alexander, and Stephens 2017), students have also been found to require explicit instruction in how to use features of different types of texts to guide reading (e.g., understanding the sections of a journal article, Lee 2008;Van Lacum et al. 2012;Van Lacum, Ossevoort, and Goedhart 2014). ...
Undergraduates report a variety of reasons for not reading assigned text(s), including confusion regarding instructors’ expectations, while faculty report using reading as a major instructional tool and attest to the negative consequences of students’ lack of reading. To bridge this divide, we propose Task-Oriented Reading Instruction (TORI) as a theoretically-based framework which faculty can use to explicitly communicate reading goals to students, specify effective reading strategies, and align class assessments with assigned reading goals. Synthesizing educational and psychological research on effective reading, this general framework can be applied across courses and disciplines.
... As a skill that is both everywhere and nowhere, reading in the disciplines is of particular concern to our study. Typically, scholars who examine reading at the college level ask questions that fall into specific categories: some ask how college students may struggle with reading and how they may relate to whether or not they complete assigned reading (Bunn, 2013;Jolliffe & Harl, 2008;Kerr & Frese, 2017;Smith, 2012;Sweeney & McBride, 2015); other scholars interested in information literacy ask whether or not students question the validity of the sources they use (Boh Podgonk, Dolničar, Šorgo, & Bartol, 2016); others ask how students read, whether it be critically (Horning, 2007), rhetorically (Downs, 2010), or reflectively (Carillo, 2015); and, finally, others ask how college instructors and their pedagogies affect student reading (Bunn, 2013). Complicating these conversations is the reality that each context typically carries with it a unique definition of what the larger curricular goals-like critical or reflective reading-mean in theory and in practice. ...
Despite efforts of both administration and faculty, the intent and the execution of new curricular initiatives are not always in alignment. To understand how the declaration of a campus-wide general education initiative was being implemented, this article combines analyses of syllabi and courses from across disciplines. In an initial review, the goal was to understand how new elements of Core Objectives and Student Learning Outcomes were being incorporated into syllabi. After this general review, the authors sought to understand how core elements associated specifically with reading were being implemented in syllabi and in the classroom. This article finds that while critical analysis and reading are valued as cornerstones of the university, the details of who is responsible for teaching and assessing these important features remains less clear. “Reading” is variously prevalent across disciplinary courses: while present in the course structure and assessment mechanisms of syllabi across the university, there is little evidence that instructors are holding themselves responsible for teaching and assessing it as an intellectual practice. Amid a national scholarly conversation about reading and its role in critical thinking, this study contributes ideas for how institutions can more explicitly align stated values with curricular outcomes in practice.
... Here, reading is considered not only in terms of cognitive process but also in terms of affective and psychological factors. Rather than treating the uptake of reading practices as divorced from sense of self/ves, this body of work investigates notions of reader confidence, background schema as central to engagement with text, negotiation of the ideological expectations of the university, and student engagement with text outside of prescribed reading in the academy (Jolliffe & Harl, 2008). ...
While the importance of academic language and literacies in students’ meaningful participation in higher education has been well-explored, studies have focused on writing rather than reading. There has been a significant silence in the literature around what constitutes reading in higher education, the sociocultural complexities of reader engagement with text, and contemporary understandings of situated experiences regarding reading practices in the disciplines, especially for traditionally under-represented student groups. Scholarly interest in academic literacies, and reading in particular, has significant implications for the equity and widening participation agenda. To this end this article critically engages with research examining reading in tertiary education and describes a scoping study of scholarly work at the intersection of three domains: academic literacies, reading studies, and widening participation and equity in higher education. In asking questions of these three overlapping fields of inquiry, we map trends in existing academic literature, and argue for a research agenda that examines the experiences, perceptions and enactments of academic reading in the context of South African and Australian efforts to widen participation to higher education.
... This shows two important results one of which is that there can be more researches about using new tools, and the second one of which is that students have been growing with technology anymore, so using these kinds of tools are easy for them. Jolliffe and Harl (2008) studied the reading habits of 21 college freshmen. The study took place after seven weeks of students' participation in the lessons. ...
This study investigates the relationship between blogs and achievements in reading skills of prep-class students at tertiary level. Another purpose of the study is to find out the effective criteria in the use of blogs in reading courses of prep-classes. For the purpose of the study, a convenient sampling procedure was handled. The study was conducted in the fall semester of 2014-2015 academic year with a total number of 38 students 19 of whom constituted an experimental group and the rest 19 were in the control group. Out of 19 participants in the experimental group six were females, 13 were males. On the other hand, there are four females and 15 males in the control group. The participants were prep class students at a private university in Turkey. The groups were formed by the prep class administrative board after gathering results of the preliminary exam. Therefore, in choosing the samples, the ones to whom the researcher herself taught reading as a part of the curriculum were randomly selected students.
As to the study, the participants were asked to decide on the topics that they would like to read, but the researcher decided to use which appropriate reading skills to employ upon negotiation with the other reading teachers. The study itself took eight weeks during which the same topics such as sports, shows, festivals, etc. were discussed with both the experimental and control groups. In the experimental group, the researcher used the class blog that she herself prepared for which she had support from the experts of the fields and make use of different reading course books.
As the design of the study, a pre-test/ posttest design was applied to both the experimental and the control groups. In addition to this, a questionnaire and an interview were conducted to learn the attitudes and thoughts of the students. The data from pre-test, posttest and questionnaire were analyzed through SPSS Statistics 20©. At the outset of the study, a pre-test the results of which indicated that these groups did not differ in terms of overall reading comprehension was administered to both groups. Moreover, this was checked by another test called T-0, a reading progress test, the day before the beginning of the study. Then during the period of the experiment which takes eight weeks, two reading progress tests, T-3 and T-6, were applied once in three weeks to observe the improvements of the experimental and control groups in reading skills. The results gathered from these tests indicated that while both of the groups improved their reading skills, the experimental group had higher grades than the control group. Furthermore, the progress tests have shown that as the duration of the experiment is extended, the effects of using blogs on reading skills become more vivid. At the end of the study (the end of week eight) a posttest was administered to both groups. Results obtained from the data analysis indicate that there is a statistically significant difference between the posttest results of the groups which means that the blog has positive effects on students’ achievements. Moreover, participants state that they like to use a blog since it helps them learn the language and improve their reading skills. Additionally, they believe that using blogs have motivated them to read more and to get better results from the reading exams. Besides, interviews show how to organize a blog effectively with handling the topics such as arranging easy-use templates, choosing popular reading passages, deciding the level of English based on CEFR, etc.
As a result, it is clearly understood from the study that the use of blogs is an effective, motivating and contemporary way of improving and enhancing reading skills.
College reading instruction warrants recognition as a necessary and actionable means of teaching for social justice. Faculty who teach students how to read course texts—and who guide and support them in doing so—advance social justice and equity via three separate mechanisms of action. These processes preferentially benefit marginalized and underserved students while more broadly fostering conceptual and perspective-taking skills essential for social justice.
Background: The process of developing health literacy (HL) begins in childhood and embraces several skills and experiences. Individuals need these skills to properly manage their health and interact with healthcare systems. Although studies considering HL and its related variables are extensive in volume and informative in results, it seems necessary to add more to the field by addressing the issue among students of medicine. Objectives: The present study aimed to check the level of HL and extracurricular reading habits among students of medicine, how they obtain health information, the relationship between their HL and their extracurricular reading habits, and the relationship between extracurricular reading habits and each of the five aspects of HL. Methods: The participants (N = 220) were studying at Abadan University of Medical Sciences, Abadan, Iran. The data were collected using the Health Literacy for Iranian Adults (HELIA) questionnaire (Montazeri et al., 2015) and a questionnaire developed by the researchers. Results: The findings suggest that extracurricular studying positively correlated with reading health information, reaching health information, and using health information for the respondents of the present study. There was also a significant difference between the extracurricular reading habits and the HL of respondents. However, extracurricular studying and their appraisal of health information did not positively correlate. Furthermore, the Internet was the first source of information for the respondents. Conclusions: The aforementioned results might direct health policymakers’ attention to the HL concerns that medical students need and the ways that they immediately hang on to reach information (i.e., the Internet).
Despite a recent interest in thinking writing studies alongside disability, there has yet to be much conversation about disability’s relationship to reading. I argue, however, that experiences of disability and neurodivergence in particular can expand our field’s understanding of what constitutes literacy and of who can be literate.
Positioning reading as a site of meaning negotiation, this article provides a detailed account of one multilingual, transnational student’s literacy practices for personal, academic, and disciplinary purposes across spaces. Drawing on the notion of disconnect , I examine the tensions and fissures that disrupt the flow of literacies across spaces.
This chapter examines specific Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles, guidelines, and checkpoints that support the removal of barriers to reading to learn efforts. The chapter will also offer practical examples of relevant curricular moves to support student learning from texts.
As one campus of a four-campus state system, Missouri University of Science and Technology has been searching for ways to effectively integrate online courses across the curriculum. This search originally came in the form of a directive from higher administration, on both the university and system levels. Therein lay the first difficulty for us with online instruction. Specifically, online instruction’s value may be very different for university system administration than it is for each campus, each department, and each instructor. For many SCUs facing drastically reduced state funding, greater competition for student enrollment, and increased operating costs, online instruction may be viewed as something of a revenue panacea. Through online course offerings, campuses can reach far-flung populations of students unable to commute for face-to-face (F2F) instruction. Online courses may carry additional fees, thus producing another potential revenue source. Lastly, physical classroom space is often at a premium in SCUs; limited resources and limited space often conflict with a need to increase enrollments. Blended delivery methods can therefore relieve scheduling difficulties during peak course hours
This paper argues for recognition of shared goals and purposes for all teachers of writing (professional, creative, academic, technical) while acknowledging the intrinsic differences in their domains. It argues as well for an assertion of a discipline of writing, in professional and public contexts, so that the public including our students might acknowledge the activities and processes of the discipline. While the debates on these matters have been aired in
TEXT and other forums for some time, the proposition enunciated here is prompted by reflections on the preliminary findings of a study, part of a collaborative international project, to examine students’ perceptions of their writing and reading practices and of their needs as writers in transition into and through an undergraduate writing program. Early data about student perceptions and expectations have raised issues relevant to the debates about teaching writing (and reading) and how writing courses are perceived, prompting the reflections offered in this paper. Such speculations lead to the suggestion that as writing teachers we adopt a pedagogical principle of supporting all our students to develop
inter alia what Shannon Carter (2007: 574) has termed ‘rhetorical dexterity’, and that this might be aligned with an acceptance of the imagination as a tool in all writing particularly as the digital medium changes reading and writing practices and the design, production and reception of texts.
This article explores how annotation with digital, social tools can address digital reading challenges while also supporting writing skill development for novices in college literature classrooms. The author analyzes student work and survey responses and shows that social annotation can facilitate closer digital reading and scaffold text-anchored argumentation practices.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore various concepts of time and temporal dimensions in the context of everyday reading experiences.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses theoretical bricolage that puts existing reading research into conversation with theories of time and temporalities.
Findings
Three registers of time in reading are put forward: (1) libraries and books as places that readers return to again and again over time, (2) temporalized reading bodies and (3) everyday reading as a temporalized practice.
Research limitations/implications
Using lenses of time and temporalities, everyday reading is shown to be central to ways of being in time. Subjectives experiences of time in the context of reading expand the limited ways that time is presented in much Library and Information Science (LIS) reading research.
Originality/value
This paper offers a new conceptual framework for studies of reading and readers in LIS.
This article addresses the challenges of fake news and echo chambers in the digital age by exploring the possibility that susceptibility to misinformation derives not from an inevitable fault in the medium of digital publishing but, rather, from the slower development and adoption of pedagogies that leverage digital tools for reading. The authors examined student annotations and argue that focusing on reading using collaborative digital annotation can stimulate knowledge acquisition and personal belief formation and, further, can assist educators to evaluate the effectiveness of instruction and intervene where needed. Digital annotation tools promote affective and cognitive engagement with texts and enable both instructor-to-peer and peer-to-peer modeling of reading strategies.
Referencing current research in neuroscience, this article argues that although knowledge about logic and evidence are important for helping students become critical thinkers, teachers should devote attention to the nonrational biases currently being evoked for persuasion, plan additional class time for students to reflect on their own emotional biases, and encourage students to self-identify as critical thinkers, so that they will continue to think critically in other courses and contexts. To attain this goal, approaches involving performance and reflection should be given further attention to help students develop the habit of questioning the credibility of information.
In this article, I share a case study illustrating potentials and pitfalls of social media technologies in writing pedagogy to network students and disciplinary stakeholders. It is drawn from a larger dataset, a mixed-methods study exploring social media in pedagogy and professional contexts by writing studies faculty. The case study emerged from a graduate-level course I taught that used Twitter as a digital bridge to build community among students, faculty, and professional organizations. Through the case study, I offer a deeper dive into issues that can arise regarding invisible, uncompensated digital labor when teaching with social media. To offer faculty and administrators pedagogical takeaways connected to this case study, I provide a heuristic (a table with guiding questions and further readings) for conscientious consideration and use of pedagogical social media—an attempt to make visible some of these labor and ethical concerns.
Recent reading scholarship suggests that instructors should carefully attend to their students’ reading practices. Although reading journals offer insight into student practices, we continue to treat reading journals as a mundane, process-based document and overlook the important metacognitive work that journals contribute. Through the examination of a corpus of student texts, this article argues for reenvisioning the work of the reading journal, demonstrating how this commonplace assignment contributes to students’ recognition of reading-writing connections and describes a new lens through which to approach reading journals.
Many adolescents resist reading texts for academic purposes because they perceive books as isolated and primitive; furthermore, they feel assigned readings hold little interest for them. An alternative is the digital ebook reader, which offers users the ability to instantly access and read a wide variety of books. As part of the discussion on integrating technology into classrooms to enhance Language Arts instruction, this chapter highlights general findings from a semester-long case study involving high school students using Kindle® ebook readers. The purpose of the study was to determine whether ebooks are a preferable medium for younger users, and whether ebooks influence reading behaviors and practices among adolescents in both academic and non-academic contexts. The study yielded insight into students’ purposes for academic and for leisurely reading, as well as the benefits, and drawbacks, to using digital ebook readers. By understanding the relationship between technology and classroom pedagogy, educators can foster students’ critical engagement in reading tasks and actively contribute to curricular reading lists.
Resumo Este trabalho visa investigar os hábitos e as competências leitoras de universitários, verificando as correlações entre essas variáveis e seu impacto sobre o desempenho acadêmico dos alunos. A pesquisa foi realizada com 60 estudantes de Administração, que preencheram questionário com perguntas sobre seus hábitos de leitura e um teste de compreensão leitora, estruturado segundo a técnica de cloze; foram coletadas também as médias dos alunos em todas as disciplinas cursadas. Confirmando as hipóteses de pesquisa, as três variáveis estudadas apresentaram significativa correlação. Dentre as conclusões, destaca-se a importância da leitura por lazer, que surgiu como fator mais fortemente associado à pontuação obtida no teste de compreensão de leitura e à média de notas do semestre.
Qualitative data analysis from open‐ended comments written by 206 undergraduates illustrates student attitudes, beliefs, and practices that reveal an academic reading paradox. Consistently, undergraduates report that reading is valuable, yet their noncompliance with reading assignments suggests otherwise. Undergraduates report that they achieve their academic goals with little reading and that they perceive reading as too voluminous and irrelevant to class outcomes. The data highlight a misalignment between conventional academic expectations that undergraduates will read in scholarly ways and their actual academic reading practice. Qualitative analysis illustrates that students do not experience academic reading as a venue for scholarly engagement in disciplinary discourse. Whereas the academic reading literature proposes that students develop along a continuum from novice to expert reader, findings suggest that the undergraduate experience of academic reading is not representative of that continuum.
University educators have observed the concurrent problems of student attrition, higher than normal or desired failure rates and students struggling to complete assessable and non-assessable work, for instance, set readings. Recent public commentary has pointed to the widening participation agenda with its lowering of university entrance scores and consequent increase in university places as factors contributing to the problem: many students are entering university without the preparation or dispositions that helped their predecessors succeed. University teachers are at the coalface of this problem. These teachers do not set entrance scores or course caps but are tasked with supporting an increasingly diverse student population.
This article offers a case study: a university teacher’s encounter with a university’s Key Accountability Measures around failure and attrition, and offers a teaching response to this policy. In response to these changing conditions, The Reading Lab was designed as a large-group learning and teaching activity in the form of a series of interactive lectures devoted to the practices of reading. The Lab sessions sought to address a problem that many scholarship-of-reading researchers have communicated: our university students are often not resilient readers and as a result often do not complete set readings. This article evaluates what the Reading Lab achieved (and failed to achieve). For instance, if it is possible (in the current climate) that the failure and attrition rates might never radically improve, how can teaching and learning activities be more positively directed towards the student experience, for even minor gains in the inclusion and the retention of students?
In Uses of Literature (2008), Rita Felski outlines four ways in which our affective responses to literature can serve as a starting point for a new form of literary criticism drawing on reader response and ethical criticism. This article situates Felski’s approach in the context of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) on reading resilience, close and reflective reading and discusses my own experiences with integrating Felski’s ideas into a second-year subject in English literature.
Threshold concept theory can identify transformative concepts in disciplinary communities of practice, making it a useful framework pedagogically for scholars of academic literacies. Although researchers have studied how to teach threshold concepts and how students have taken up these concepts in learning to write, few have looked at two aspects that are particularly important for students placed into basic writing: threshold concepts of reading and questions of learning transfer. Taking an epistemological approach to disciplinary literacies, I used case study research to trace the changing reading and writing practices of Bruce, a basic writing and first-generation college student, during his first year of college as he moved from a basic reading course into biochemistry. Bruce leveraged audience awareness to write rhetorically and to comprehend difficult texts written for professional biochemistry researchers. Findings show that audience awareness is a threshold concept of reading, one that transforms academic literacy practices and that furthers identity in disciplinary communities of practice. These findings support the teaching of audience awareness in secondary and postsecondary classrooms, but they also demand that we recognize the additional work basic writing students, like Bruce, must do to establish agency in a system that has labeled them underprepared. Copyright © 2018 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved.
This qualitative research study explores how students engage with digital texts and use them in source-based writing. The article focuses on two findings. First, students engaged most frequently with strong reading comprehension strategies—engaging in dialogue with the text and using a cursor while reading, yet hardly employed reading strategies specific to digital texts. The relationship between these findings position students developmentally as “beginning” digital readers. Second, the “beginning” digital reader as writer draws on the digital text mostly at the sentence level, and much of the time, at the word level. Research suggests that such engagement may indicate reading and comprehension issues (Howard et al. 2010). Interestingly, the research participants demonstrated sophisticated reading invention work during the think aloud protocols: they seemingly understood what they read and interacted with the text in meaningful ways. However, this verbal invention work did not emerge in their writing. In an effort to understand the disconnect between reading and writing, the writer explores the differences between speech and writing as well as the role of audience and reading strategies in the translation of verbal invention to writing. Pedagogical suggestions and avenues for further research are presented at the end of the article.
Research indicates that there has been a decline in college reading over the past decades, yet few studies have been conducted at community colleges. The aim of this exploratory study was to gain a broad view of what reading across the curriculum looks like at one urban community college from the perspectives of students and faculty. A survey was administered to students to gather information on their reading practices, beliefs, and attitudes. A second survey was distributed to full-time faculty to gather information on assignments, practices, and beliefs regarding reading. Findings indicate that many students do not complete assigned readings. Further, women students spend more time on reading and attend class more often having completed assigned reading than men. There are discrepancies between students’ and faculty’s assessments of students’ reading abilities, whether reading is essential to course success and between the kinds of readings commonly assigned and those students enjoy reading. The study identified areas for further research on reading in community college including the relationship between gender, reading compliance, and community college outcomes; the effectiveness of reading compliance strategies; the relationship between PowerPoint use and student reading; and students’ use of active reading strategies. The findings also point out the need for pedagogical innovation in the teaching of reading in community college, namely through the implementation of reading across the curriculum programs.
in the same year. No matter where you place the incipient moment, there followed a revolution in the study and teaching of writing, and we have been a part of it. Let's be bold: we would like to be in on the ground floor of a similar revolution in the study and teaching of reading, pre-K through adult. Several corners of the education terrain are shouting to us that such a revolution is called for, and the voices from each corner cry out the same message: Our students are not engaged with their reading, and we educators, particularly at the postsecondary and secondary level, don't really know how to engage them. How do we know they're not engaged?
This article informs educators about the importance and challenges of teaching digital reading practices. In positioning reading as a design-oriented activity and readers as text designers, instructors can teach genre awareness as a way to help students strongly engage with and comprehend digital texts.
In this article, we discuss the literacy narratives of coauthors Melissa Pearson and Brittney Moraski, who came to computers almost a generation apart. Our goal is to demonstrate the importance of situating literacies of technology—and literacies more generally—within specific cultural, material, educational, and familial contexts that influence, and are influenced by, their acquisition and development. he increasing presence of personal computers in homes, workplaces, com- munities, and schools over the past twenty-five years has brought about dra- matic changes in the ways people create and respond to information. In the United States, for example, the ability to read, compose, and communicate in computer environments—called variously technological, digital, or electronic literacy1—has acquired increased importance not only as a basic job skill2 but also, every bit as significant, as an essential component of literate activity.3 To day, if students cannot write to the screen—if they cannot design, author, analyze, and interpret material on the Web and in other digital environments— they may be incapable of functioning effectively as literate citizens in a grow- ing number of social spheres. The ability to write well—and to write well with
Examines differences in reading habits of developmental college students with varying levels of reading proficiency. Finds that subjects spent an unusually low amount of time on academic reading and even less time on nonacademic reading. Finds no significant differences between high- and low-proficient readers with regard to amount of time spent reading academic or nonacademic materials. (RS)