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Poetics Today : ( June ) ./-
© by Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics
Doing the Reading: The Decline of Long Long- Form
Reading in Higher Education
Naomi S. Baron
American University
Anne Mangen
University of Stavanger
Abstract Long- form reading of literary and non- literary texts is historically an
essential component of education. However, in many schooling contexts, the
amount of long- form reading is diminishing. Are digital technologies augmenting
this trend? And are these technologies aecting assignments and student reading
patterns in other ways? This article begins by arguing for the relevance of long-
form reading and then reviews prior research on how much assigned reading stu-
dents in higher education report completing. With these findings as background,
the university faculties in the United States and Norway were sur veyed to gauge
contemporary reading assignments and student reading practices in humanities
and social sciences disciplines, which traditionally are reading intensive. Several of
the questions focused on the potential impact of technology on reading assignments,
including their length and complexity. This exploratory research suggests that digi-
tal technologies are contributing to reduced long- form reading in higher education.
Keywords long- form reading, higher education, digital technology
Our special thank s to William Harder for his invaluable assistance in designi ng our survey
instrument and interpreting survey results. We are further grateful to faculty participants
at the University of Stavanger, the University of Oslo, the University of Bergen, and A mer-
ican University. Our thank s as well to the editors of this special issue and to an anonymous
reviewer for their insightful suggestions on an earlier draft of the manuscript.
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254 Poetics Today 42:2
Written texts come in all lengths, from haiku and tweets to feature sto-
ries and triple- decker novels. Fiction is notorious for long works (Samuel
Richard son’s Clarissa is nearly a million words), but nonfiction sometimes
goes to great lengths as well (Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire contains just over a million). Reading has traditionally been a criti-
cal component of formal pedagogy. Longer texts — whether novels, essays,
or non- literary genres such as monographs and textbooks — are essential to
most arts and humanities disciplines, especially in higher education.
For many years, school systems, parents, or students themselves secured
individual physical copies of assigned reading material. In the twenty- first
century, this model is being upended. A ubiquitous issue is technology.
With the advent of personal computers, then the internet, next e- books,
and now mobile digital devices, the platform on which students are asked,
or choose, to read is commonly shifting from print to screen.
Other factors also aect how and what students read. As the cost of text-
books (especially print books) has soared, students and school systems are
increasingly reluctant to purchase entire books, and faculty are hesitant to
assign them. Second, how students in higher education spend their time is
shifting, as now their days are often filled with internships and social media,
in addition to employment (Hauschildt, Vögtle, and Gwosć ; George-
town University Center on Education and the Workforce ), leaving less
time for schoolwork, including reading. Disparities in students’ academic
preparation have also increased and are sometimes reflected in lower aver-
age interest in reading. Finally, the pedagogical content of education itself
is changing in some countries, as the curriculum becomes less focused on
liberal learning and more on preparing students for employment.
In this article, we place under the microscope the readings that uni-
versity faculty assign — and students do or don’t complete. Our underly-
ing interest is in the current state of long- form reading. Recent research
indicates a stark decline in leisure reading of books, especially fiction, by
younger students (e.g., OECD ; Twenge, Martin, and Spitzberg ).
This decline in reading for pleasure leads us to ask what is happening in
formal school settings. Are faculty assigning fewer book- length works than
in the past? And what about total amount of assigned reading?1
Higher education is a context in which we might assume students engage
extensively with the written word. However, prior studies of student read-
ing patterns call this assumption into question. Moreover, missing from
. Our analysis in this article focuses on reading assignments in higher education. Unfor-
tunately, we do not have comparable data on readi ng assignments in secondary schools.
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Baron and Mangen · Doing the Reading 255
such research is a measured look at the readings that faculty assign. In this
article, we report findings from a small exploratory study we conducted
on reading assignments in higher education. Among our questions were
whether faculty have adjusted their course reading in recent years, and
whether the rise of digital technologies for reading, listening to, or viewing
electronic content has influenced those changes.
However, before getting to the educational contexts motivating the
research and to the study itself, we need to clarify what we mean by long-
form reading and why this kind of reading is important.
1. Long- Form Reading
1.1. What is Long- Form Reading?
Generating a precise definition of long- form reading is a more dicult
task than one might think. Text length and long reads are moving targets,
especially when much reading is being done on screens. Evidence suggests
that online reading (which favors brevity) is encouraging both authors and
publishers to create shorter texts than in earlier years (Baron : Chap-
ter ). Moreover, digital reading often entails engaging with multimodal
configurations in which verbal text is merely one part. Understanding how
digitization aects how we engage with various kinds of texts is therefore a
pressing issue, as are the implications for long- form reading.
Definitions of reading length often depend on whom you ask. For con-
text, it is useful to keep in mind that empirical reading studies commonly
use texts containing only a few sentences or paragraphs. Such lengths are
also typical of eye- tracking experiments used to study reading (see, e.g.,
Radach, Kennedy, and Rayner ). Comprehension experiments are
generally limited to a few pages. This length is reflected in a recent meta-
analysis (Delgado et al. ) of fifty- four studies comparing linear text
comprehension on paper and screens, where texts were defined as “long”
when they exceeded a thousand words (roughly three or four pages). By
contrast, a large, international study assessing tertiary students’ academic
reading format preferences (Mizrachi et al. ) categorized as “long”
texts that were more than seven pages.
Of course, length is hardly the only variable involved in assessing long-
form texts. Works of equal length can dier widely on other parameters,
such as conceptual complexity. A hundred- page philosophical treatise or
physics textbook typically requires more time and cognitive eort to read
than a three- hundred page crime novel that scores high on measures of
redundancy, word familiarity, and predictability but low on syntactic and
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256 Poetics Today 42:2
semantic complexity. Within a genre, we also need to consider variation —
there are long novels and short ones, long histories of the Roman Empire
and abbreviated ones.
The relative nature of textual length becomes evident when we consider
educational assignments in higher education. Think of a course on social
theory. Long- form reading might include Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic
and the Spirit of Capitalism. Current print editions run between three- and
four- hundred pages. Both the entire book and a single chapter in it are
technically “long form,” but they dier dramatically in length.
Digital technology may also be a relevant variable in readers’ percep-
tions of what counts as long form. Longform.org, a digital site recommend-
ing “new and classic non- fiction from around the web” specifies long form
to be “pieces over , words.” For long- form news online, the bar is even
lower. To study how readers are engaging with news stories on mobile
phones, the Pew Research Center defined long- form articles as one thou-
sand words or more (Mitchell, Stocking, and Masta ). Interestingly,
the average time participants took to read these “long- form” news pieces
was a mere seconds.
We suggest segmenting the notion of long- form into three sizes: “short
long- form” (e.g., newspaper articles, generally in the range of – ,
words), “medium long- form” (e.g., book chapters or journal articles, typ-
ically , – , words), and “long long- form” (e.g., novels or nonfic-
tion books). University students are still are being assigned versions of long
form, but the amount of long long- form assignments might be diminishing.
1.2. Why Does Long- Form Reading Matter?
A wealth of research establishes associations between book reading and
reading comprehension (e.g., Cunningham and Stanovich , ). A
recent longitudinal study (Pfost, Dörfler, and Artelt ) found that the
best readers read books frequently; the poorest read little but used digital
devices extensively for socializing. Similarly, Duncan et al. () found
that reading print books positively correlates with reading comprehension,
whereas reading shorter digital texts such as text messages, factual web-
sites, and blogs does not.2 Using the Programme for International Student
Assessment (PISA) database from the Organisation for Economic
Co- operation (OECD), with results from more than , teenagers
from across thirty- five OECD countries, Jerrim and Moss () found
evidence that teenagers who spend more time reading fiction texts have
significantly stronger reading skills than peers who do not read fiction or
. The study did not look at reading full- length books digita lly.
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Baron and Mangen · Doing the Reading 257
read less of it. The authors called their finding the “fiction eect,” since
no associations were found between reading skills and frequency of read-
ing nonfiction, news, magazines, or comics. This finding has been rep-
licated with longitudinal data from Spain ( Jerrim, Lopez- Agudo, and
Marcenaro- Gutierrez ).
A recent longitudinal study from Finland corroborates these findings.
Torppa et al. () looked at associations between leisure reading (books,
magazines, newspapers, and shorter digital texts, e.g., blogs, messages,
emails, and social media) and reading skills of , students from age
seven to sixteen. Leisure reading of books in particular (textual genre not
specified) was positively correlated with better reading comprehension,
whereas leisure reading of shorter digital texts was negatively correlated.
Hence, leisure reading of long long- form texts, specifically books, has been
documented to play an important role in development of reading skills,
whereas the contributions of engaging with shorter digital texts are more
questionable.
What we are calling long long- form potentially helps readers cultivate a
number of cognitive strengths. In the case of fiction, readers need to fol-
low a sustained plot line and keep in mind the cast of characters. Depend-
ing on the work, readers might also reflect on the relevance of the story to
their own lives or try to work out the ending in advance. With biographies
or histories, readers are asked to follow detail- filled timelines. In the case
of academically oriented nonfiction, authors commonly develop sustained
arguments, present evidence, and draw conclusions, which readers need
to follow and assess. Some of these reader activities are also relevant to
shorter texts, but the amount of sustained cognitive involvement and eort
is often greater with longer texts, where there are more components to keep
track of.
Potential benefits of reading longer texts accrue only if people actually
are doing the reading. But are they? Our focus is on reading assignments
in higher education. Most research on student reading completion has
been done at this tertiary level. Additionally, colleges and universities are
the setting in which substantial long- form (including long long- form) read-
ing has traditionally been assigned to students. Finally, student judgments
regarding their own academic reading provided a direct impetus for us to
examine faculty practices (how much faculty were assigning) and percep-
tions (of how much they felt students were completing).
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258 Poetics Today 42:2
2. Prior Research
2.1. Have College Students Been Doing the Reading?
For several decades, American researchers have been measuring how much
of their assigned reading college students are completing. While results
vary across studies, one indisputable conclusion emerges: vast numbers of
students have not been doing the reading ( Johnson ). Several stud-
ies have measured completion of reading for the class session for which it
was specifically assigned. The responses are consistent — and low. Clump,
Bauer, and Bradley () found that only percent had done the read-
ing, while Baier et al. () reported not quite percent. In light of the
inherent unreliability of self- reporting, the actual percentages (here and in
studies described below) might actually be even lower.
Self () focused on books and articles students were asked to check out
from the university library for course reading assignments. Only per-
cent checked out any items at all, and over percent checked out fewer
than half of their assigned materials. Using a dierent measure (surprise
quizzes in class), Burchfield and Sappington () traced reading com-
pliance by psychology students (undergraduate through graduate) at their
small university between and . Summing across – , only
about a third of the students had completed the assigned reading (typi-
cally a textbook chapter) before class. However, over time the completion
level dropped o precipitously, from over percent in to around
percent by . Equally vexing are data from Ribera and Wang () on
more than eighteen thousand seniors drawn from forty- five colleges and
universities. Only percent of those surveyed said they usually completed
all of their assigned course reading, presumably by the end of the semester.
While many dynamics may contribute to these low numbers, one factor in
large- scale studies such as this may be the expansion of higher education in
recent decades to wider student populations, who bring a broader range of
reading and study skills, along with a broader range of motivation.
To help make sense of these figures, consider how much reading college
students report doing overall for their academic work. In the United
States, the most reliable statistics come from National Survey of Student
Engagement (nsse.indiana.edu), administered to first- year students and
seniors across the country. In recent years, responses to the question of
how many hours students spend doing assigned reading (for all of their
courses) in a typical seven- day week have not really changed (table ).
These numbers should be viewed in context of another survey question:
how many hours students estimate spending overall preparing for class,
including “studying, reading, writing, doing homework or lab work,
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Baron and Mangen · Doing the Reading 259
analyzing data, rehearsing, and other academic work.” Time spent in class
was not included. Responses are shown in table .
Data from UK undergraduates suggest their average number of hours for
reading approximates that for total class preparation in the United States.
St Clair- Thompson, Graham, and Marsham (: ) found UK stu-
dents reported averaging . hours per week “reading a range of sources,
including textbooks and journal articles for both guided and independent
reading.” However, the figure was below the minimal twenty- five hours
weekly stipulated by school guidelines. This British minimum is roughly
equivalent to US accreditation standards for overall class preparation,
measured in so- called Carnegie units. If we assume students are enrolled
full time and spending approximately fifteen hours per week in class, the
expectation is for twice that number of hours of outside preparation — that
is, thirty hours (US Department of Education ). Yet thirty is double
the number of preparation hours US undergraduates report spending.3
Why are so many students completing so little assigned reading? The
primary reason students oer is lack of time (Ribera and Wang ).
However, another rationale is not believing the reading is necessary to suc-
ceed in the course. Baier et al. () found that . percent of students sur-
veyed believed they could earn an A in the class without doing the reading.
. We do not have comparable statistics for weekly undergraduate reading hours in Norway.
Table 1. Total hours students spend doing assigned reading in a typical seven- day
week
Year First- year students Seniors
2013 6.4 hours/week 6.9 hours/week
2018 6.6 hours/week 7.2 hours/week
Data from the National Survey of Student Engagement (www.nsse.indiana.edu).
Table 2. How many hours students spend overall preparing for class
Hours/week spent
Year First- year students Seniors
2013 14.2 15.0
2018 14.5 14.9
Data from the National Survey of Student Engagement (www.nsse.indiana.edu).
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260 Poetics Today 42:2
2.2. How Much Reading Have Faculty Been Assigning?
How much responsibility rests with students, and how much with faculty?
If, for example, faculty discuss in class everything in the assigned reading,
student motivation for reading understandably declines. It is also import-
ant to consider that, for reading assignments not actively incorporated into
the course structure, many students may be unlikely to complete them.
How much reading are faculty assigning? Very little research has been
done on this question. Anecdotally, the first author recalls from her under-
graduate days that each semester- long course in the humanities or social
sciences required at least four or five books’ worth of reading. During her
teaching career over the decades, she incrementally reduced the length of
her reading list, as students (undergraduate and graduate) completed less
and less of what was assigned. Again anecdotally, these experiences have
been confirmed by many of her colleagues.
What about hard data on contemporary practices? Evidence suggests
lighter university reading loads in the United States than in Norway,
though we lack matched comparisons. For the United States, it is import-
ant to keep in mind that faculty members typically have individual juris-
diction over the amount of reading they assign — there are no national
standards. Aram and Roksa (: ) found that in US students’ previous
semester, one- third of those surveyed had not taken a course requiring
even forty pages of reading per week. The findings, however, are nuanced.
Distinguishing by level of institutional academic selectivity, students in
“highly selective” schools met this criterion percent of the time, com-
pared with percent in “selective” schools and percent in “less selec-
tive” schools (Aram and Roksa : – ).
In Norway, overarching requirements regarding the length of reading
assignments are set by national guidelines, with some room allowed for
variation among dierent universities, subject areas, and types of reading.4
As a rough rule of thumb, Norwegian students in the humanities and social
sciences are expected to read about eight hundred to one thousand pages
in a ten- ECTS (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System) one-
semester course — roughly equivalent to a three- credit course in the United
States.5 For literature courses, the numbers are typically a bit higher. Since
. See, e.g., guidelines from the University of Oslo: www.uio.no/for- ansatte/arbeidsstotte
/sta/enheter/hf/program- emner/behandling- emner/emnenormer.html#pensum.
. In most US universities, the average semester- long course earns students three academic
credits. A typical semester course load is fifteen credits. Nor way’s system follows the Bolo-
gna Process and is calculated in ECTS, based on the European Credit Transfer and Accu-
mulation System. An A merican three- credit undergraduate course roughly equals ten
ECTS in Norway. Full- time US students typically ta ke more courses per semester (four or
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Baron and Mangen · Doing the Reading 261
, pages is approximately equivalent to , or , words, it is
likely that an appreciable number of these are long long- form works.
In examining how much long- form reading students are being assigned
— and doing — we must keep in mind the wide disparities among students
themselves, among institutions, and among national contexts. We also
cannot overlook extenuating factors such as cost and student motivation
for being in college.
3. Extenuating Factors
3.1. The Cost of Long- Form Reading
Higher education can be expensive. Beyond tuition and living expenses,
there is the cost of textbooks. In much of Europe, tuition costs are largely
borne by the state, financed through taxation. In some countries, there is
also support for living expenses and books. In Norway, for example, stu-
dents pay no tuition, only an annual registration fee of under $ USD.
Moreover, Norwegian university students can obtain state loans to finance
living expenses, which, if students progress at the normal academic pace,
can be partially converted to stipends.
Compare the American model: for the – academic year, at US
private institutions tuition and fees averaged $, USD; at public col-
leges, $, USD, though tuition is higher for out- of- state residents (Powell
). The cost of room and board is added on top of tuition costs. Schol-
arships exist, but most costs are paid by students and their families. Unsur-
prisingly, US college students feel particularly burdened by the added cost
of textbooks. Over time, textbook prices have risen at an alarming rate.
Between and , the cost of assigned textbooks increased , per-
cent (Popken ). The nonprofit College Board estimated that for the
– academic year undergraduates should have budgeted about $,
USD for textbooks and related materials. In practice, many students don’t
spend that amount: they purchase used books (including earlier editions),
share books with classmates, borrow books from the library, or in many
cases, go without. A study of US and Canadian undergraduates found that
percent delayed or avoided purchasing course textbooks; of these,
percent said their reason was cost (McKenzie ).
Faculty in the United States worry about textbook costs as well. A recent
study found that percent of the faculty surveyed believed cost was the
five) than their Norwegian counterparts. In Norway, most courses are worth ten or fi fteen
ECTS, and full- ti me students take thirty ECTS per semester.
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262 Poetics Today 42:2
primary reason students did not procure textbooks. At the same time,
the survey found that percent of the faculty presumed students did not
acquire the textbooks because they thought the books were unnecessary
(Seaman and Seaman ). Persistent anecdotal evidence indicates an
increasing trend among faculty to assign individual articles or book chap-
ters rather than entire books.6 Often those readings are supplied digitally
through library or individual course sites, with no direct cost to the stu-
dent. Such medium long- form readings have the dual benefits of reducing
cost and oering lengths that students might actually tackle, unlike full-
length books.
The trend toward shorter readings has also been hastened by health
and safety concerns. In the United States, the HN outbreak led
colleges and universities to direct faculty to put course readings online, in
case schools needed to close. Only one chapter per book could be posted,
because of copyright law. In the COVID- pandemic brought school
closures around the globe, and classes moved online. Some book- length
materials were available, thanks to growing library purchases of e- books
and publishers’ extension of digital access in this time of crisis. However,
journal articles and other online resources were often substituted for book-
length works housed in the closed libraries and inaccessible dormitory
rooms.
3.2. Changing Educational Profile
Cost is not the only factor impacting how much reading students are doing.
Profiles of the students themselves have been shifting — who they are, how
they spend their time, and what they choose to study.
In almost . million undergraduates were enrolled in the United
States; by that figure had surpassed . million (National Center for
Education Statistics b). Moreover, there are growing demands on stu-
dents’ time. While in the s and s many students worked part- time,
almost none did internships. Today, besides the hours consumed with part-
time jobs, internships are ubiquitous in American higher education. By
, percent of graduating seniors had completed at least one intern-
ship.7 Though internships often carry academic credit, they can consume
twenty- five to thirty hours per week, plus commuting time. After adding
time spent on social media — which, judging from data on teenagers, is
. To our knowledge, unfortunately, there is no forma l research on the curricular move
from ful l- leng th works to shorter book chapters and articles.
. NACE Student Surveys, – . Data provided to the first author by Ed Koc, director
of research, National Association of Colleges and Employers.
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Baron and Mangen · Doing the Reading 263
many hours daily (Common Sense Media ) — few hours are left for
homework, including reading.
In Norway, the number of students increased dramatically during the
late s and early s, from around , in (Statistisk sentral-
byrå ) to , in (Statistisk sentralbyrå ). During the past
decade the numbers have stabilized. Internships are not common in Nor-
way, but most students have part- time jobs besides their studies.
Another factor is shifts in students’ stated college goals. Over the past
several decades, emphasis in the United States has palpably shifted from
liberal education to career preparation. Researchers at the University
of California, Los Angeles have long been surveying first- year students
across the country. Table shows students’ changing responses over time
when asked what college objectives they considered “essential” or “very
important.”
We cannot directly extrapolate from college objectives to reading habits.
However, students concerned at the outset of their education with develop-
ing a meaningful philosophy of life are more likely to value liberal learn-
ing than courses focusing on financial prospects. In liberal arts disciplines,
long long- form reading has traditionally been a fundamental part of the
curriculum. Happily, liberal education and financial success are not mutu-
ally exclusive. Many heads of successful corporations majored in literature,
history, philosophy, or the classics and now credit their liberal arts training
with developing the problem- solving abilities they use as executives (Lin-
shi ).
One direct reflection of students’ shifting educational goals is the sub-
jects they choose to study. In the United States, enrollments in reading-
intensive humanities programs such as English and history have been
dropping. From to , bachelor’s degrees awarded in English fell by
more than percent (Flaherty a); in history, by percent (Flaherty
b).
What are US students studying instead? Growth areas include computer
science, exercise science, engineering, and economics. Bachelor’s degrees
Table 3. College objectives students considered “essential” or “very important.”
Objective 1971 2015
Being well o financially 37.1% 81.9%
Developing a meaningful philosophy of life 72.7% 46.5%
Data from Eagan et al. 2016.
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264 Poetics Today 42:2
in business rose from . percent of all US bachelor’s degrees granted in
– to percent in – . For health professional and related stud-
ies, the numbers soared from percent in – to percent in –
(National Center for Education Statistics a). Considering some of the
most prestigious undergraduate institutions in the United States, the most
popular major as of at Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth, Harvard,
Princeton, and Yale was economics, with finance being number one at the
University of Pennsylvania ( Jackson ).
The picture for Norway is in many respects comparable. The increase
in the student population observed in the late s and early s was
particularly pronounced in the humanities and social sciences, as well as
in teacher education programs. Roughly a decade later, the number of
students enrolled in humanities programs dropped from around per-
cent of the total student population in the mid- s to percent in
(Aamodt and Stølen ). And the decline in the number of students in
the humanities has continued: between and , humanities saw a
. percent decrease, whereas study programs such as law, economics and
administration, science and technology, and teacher education (pedagogy)
have all seen a significant increase (Statistisk sentralbyrå ).
4. Faculty Survey in the United States and Norway
To better understand the status of long- form reading in contemporary
higher education, we focused on the constituency we know the least: fac-
ulty members doing the assigning. Our research scope was limited (a rel-
atively small number of participants, a convenience rather than random
sample, only two countries). This small- scale, exploratory study should be
taken as an invitation for additional research.
4.1. Defining and Limiting Parameters
Our choice of research venues — the United States and Norway — reflected
the location of the authors’ home institutions.8 Because of dierences in
the countries’ higher education systems and cultural contexts, we could
also observe whether these dierences impacted assignment and reading
patterns.
One aspect of faculty assignments and student reading practices that
. The survey, which was ad ministered in the spr ing of , was approved by American
University’s Institutional Review Board and the Norweg ian Social Science Data Service.
All survey responses were anonymous, except those from Norwegian facult y who were
interviewed.
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Baron and Mangen · Doing the Reading 265
particularly interested us was the potential eects of digital technology.
That is, was availability of digital media in higher education influencing
what reading faculty were assigning and how much (and with what degree
of focus) students were completing it? A larger study might have tried
teasing out the role of dierent hardware platforms (computers, laptops,
e- readers, tablets, and mobile phones) and of internet activity (including
websites and social media). For these distinctions to be meaningful, such
a study would also need to survey what devices students used for reading.
It might further dierentiate between the aordances of dierent digital
reading devices, measure online distractions when engaged in digital read-
ing, and chart metacognitive assumptions readers make about the amount
of eort necessary to read digitally as opposed to in print (Ackerman and
Goldsmith ; Singer Trakhman, Alexander, and Berkowitz ). How-
ever, this degree of granularity was beyond our scope. When we used the
term digital technology in our survey, we saw it referring to the entire gamut
of hardware, software, and usage possibilities.
We invited faculty participants from disciplines traditionally associ-
ated with long long- form texts. However, given our limited research scope,
including the need to keep the survey a tractable length, we were not able
to ask the detailed questions that a larger- scale investigation would have
included. For example, we did not ask about genre or length of each read-
ing assignment. Similarly, given our relatively small sample sizes, we had
insucient numbers from dierent disciplines to report most results by
discipline.
4.2. Research Questions
Our study explored four areas:
• How much reading are faculty assigning?
• How much of assigned reading do faculty think students are doing?
• Have faculty made changes in their reading assignments in recent years?
• Do faculty believe that digital technology is aecting the amount and eec-
tiveness of student reading?
4.3. Methodology
Faculty Participants We invited a range of humanities and social sciences
faculty members to complete an online survey. Disciplines included com-
munication and media studies, comparative literature, education, English
language and literature, history, international studies, philosophy, political
science, and sociology. US participants all taught at American University.
In Norway, participants were from the University of Stavanger, the Uni-
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266 Poetics Today 42:2
versity of Oslo, and the University of Bergen. A total of seventy- eight US
faculty members and seventy- one in Norway participated in the survey.
To supplement the online survey, four Norwegian faculty members were
interviewed by the second author. In the United States, the first author had
informal conversations with several survey participants.
Survey Construction and Administration The online survey was built in
Qualtrics, a digital survey research platform. While both the US and Nor-
wegian surveys were in English, dierent versions were mounted for each
country to reflect local pedagogical conventions and terminology.9
Online Survey Questions The core survey consisted of four sets of questions.
Set 1: How much reading are faculty assigning? The first group of
questions probed how much reading the faculty member assigned. Each
question was asked twice, once for a typical three- credit or ten- ECTS in-
troductory course and once for an advanced- level course:
• How many entire books do you ask students to read during the semester?
• About how many pages of reading do you assign for the entire semester?
(Pages ranges were provided.)
We also asked faculty to judge the complexity of their reading assignments
(easy, moderate, or dicult).
Set 2: How much of assigned reading do faculty think students are
doing? The second set of questions examined faculty perceptions re-
garding student reading compliance. Again, each question was asked
twice: once for a typical one- semester introductory course and once for an
advanced level course:
• What percentage of assigned reading do you think your students do before
class?
• What percentage of assigned reading do you think your students do by the
end of the semester?
Set 3: Have faculty made changes in their reading assignments in
recent years? A third set of questions inquired whether faculty had al-
tered their reading assignments over the past five to ten years regarding
amount or level of complexity and, if so, why, with the following options:10
. A more extensive study would need to review course syllabi to extract this information.
. The full survey provided question options for now assigning more reading or more com-
plex reading. These response numbers were sma ll.
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Baron and Mangen · Doing the Reading 267
• Students weren’t doing all the reading, so I reduced the amount.
• Students weren’t understanding the reading, so I substituted less dicult reading.
• Instead of having students read so much, I substituted more audio materials
(e.g., podcasts).
• Instead of having students read so much, I substituted more video materials
(e.g., YouTube videos, TED Talks, movies).
• Other (please describe)
Set 4: Do faculty believe that digital technology is affecting the amount
and effectiveness of student reading? The last set of questions ex-
plored whether participants thought that digital technologies were aect-
ing student reading. Specifically, we asked if they believed that growing
use of digital technologies was changing the amount of or eectiveness
with which undergraduates are reading academic materials. For those an-
swering “yes,” we further asked if such technologies were leading students
to do less academic reading or shallower reading. Participants were also
invited to identify other consequences.
Our choice of questions regarding eects of digital technology drew on
growing experimental research with students indicating that use of digital
screens leads to shallower reading than when reading in print (Delgado et
al. ; Singer and Alexander ). Complementing this experimental
work, we wanted to learn from university faculty whether they perceived
use of digital technologies to be aecting students’ cognitive engagement
with reading.
The online study concluded with the opportunity to provide additional
comments.
4.4. Study Findings
Our discussion of findings includes quantitative results and qualitative
findings from open- ended remarks, both from participants in additional
comments in the survey itself and from individual conversations with a
smaller number of faculty members. In reporting results from the quali-
tative components, we oer examples representing the range of responses.
The variety and relatively limited number of comments did not warrant
quantification.
Set 1. Amount of reading assigned Table summarizes numerical
findings on the amount of faculty reading assignments. Keep in mind that
faculty responses are only approximations. In addition, representation dif-
fered between the two countries, both in distribution of academic areas
and in content of courses. Furthermore, we should not assume the univer-
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268 Poetics Today 42:2
sities from which we collected data reflect a cross section of institutions in
either country.
Norwegian faculty appear to be assigning more books, especially at the
introductory level. Yet overall averages are lower than we anticipated: for
introductory courses, only . books were assigned per semester for the US
sample, and . for the Norwegian sample; for advanced courses, . for
the United States and . for Norway. Wide ranges were reported, even
within a single discipline. For example, among history faculty in the United
States, responses spanned from zero books to eight, both for introductory
and for advanced courses. In Norway, the span for history faculty was from
zero to three for introductory courses and one to four for advanced.
Regarding pages of reading per course, again the level is higher in Nor-
way. For introductory courses, . percent of Norwegian participants
indicated assigning more than six hundred pages, compared with only
. percent of US counterparts. While the disparity was not as large for
advanced courses, Norwegians still assigned more: . percent (Norway)
versus . percent (US). The higher Norwegian numbers likely reflect in
part Norwegian regulations. Open- ended remarks from US faculty sug-
gest another factor may be that advanced students in the United States
are often directed to find their own readings (e.g., for doing research), and
those books and pages don’t count as faculty assignments.
The survey also asked faculty to judge the level of complexity of the
readings they assigned by stipulating what percentage were easy, mod-
erate, or dicult. In both countries and both course levels, about half of
the readings were judged of moderate diculty. Again in both countries,
slightly more “easy” assignments were made in introductory courses and
slightly more “dicult” ones in advanced courses, as we might expect.
In their open- ended remarks, several faculty members commented that
either their students or they sought ways of reducing the amount of required
reading. One US respondent commented that “students come to expect
Table 4. Faculty reading assignments: averages by country
Assignment United States (n = 78) Norway (n = 71)
Entire books per semester (n)
Introductory course 1.7 2.8
Advanced course 2.3 2.8
>600 pages per semester (%)
Introductory course 53.0% 72.7%
Advanced course 64.3% 75.7%
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Baron and Mangen · Doing the Reading 269
more films and alternatives to reading and are disappointed when a class
is more reading- heavy,” while another set limits on reading expectations:
“[I] tend to assign no more than a chapter- length reading per class in
any undergraduate class.” Several Norwegian participants were concerned
that depth of understanding was being compromised by regulations:
“[The] amount of literature and pages to read — that is not my decision.”
“I have been arguing for a reduction in the number of pages/works, and
rather that we spend more time on the works that we do assign.”
Set 2. How much of assigned reading do faculty think students are
doing? Table summarizes numerical findings regarding faculty per-
ceptions of how much assigned reading their students are doing. We must
be doubly cautious in interpreting these results. Faculty have no objective
measures of student behavior. What is more, we asked faculty to generalize
across the gamut of students they teach. Our goal in posing these questions
was less to generate hard statistics than to confirm whether faculty saw
reading compliance to be problematic, as earlier research with students
suggested.
As table shows, for reading completion before the class for which it was
assigned, estimates were higher for the United States for both introductory
and advanced courses (for the US: . percent and . percent, respec-
tively; for Norway: only . percent and . percent, respectively). How-
ever, for estimated completion by the end of the semester, results for the
two countries were nearly identical for both introductory and advanced
courses (for the US: . percent and . percent, respectively; for Nor-
way: . percent and . percent, respectively).
A likely explanation for the discrepancy between countries for reading
assigned for a specific class is the dierence in academic cultures. Univer-
Table 5. Faculty perceptions about how much assigned reading students do
Assignment United States (n = 78) Norway (n = 71)
Reading before class for which is due
Introductory course 53.8% 31.4%
Advanced course 63.0% 41.6%
Reading completed by end of semester
Introductory course 65.0% 65.7%
Advanced course 72.8% 72.3%
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270 Poetics Today 42:2
sity students in Norway, as in much of Europe, tend to wait until the end of
a term (prior to a final examination) before tackling the bulk of the semes-
ter’s reading assignments. In the United States, where academic assess-
ment is typically interlaced throughout the term, there is higher expecta-
tion for students to read at more regular intervals.
In their open- ended answers, survey participants commented on vari-
ation across students. As one US faculty member put it, “Some students
are doing percent of the reading; many students are doing none of the
readings.” Wide variety across faculty estimates also surfaced in the formal
survey, with ranges in both countries swinging from between and around
percent at the low end to between and percent at the high end.
Faculty acknowledged that students’ failure to complete reading assign-
ments is not a new problem. They further observed that students make
strategic choices regarding what to read. A US faculty member wrote that
the threat of a quiz was a “compelling reason” to do the assigned reading.
A participant in Norway reported that students strategize what they must
do to pass the course: “Reading, for the students, entails cut and paste . . .
either they process the material somewhat when they know the teachers
will read and grade them, or they don’t — when it’s just a matter of pass-
ing.” As for “passing” a course, keep in mind conclusions by Baier et al.
(), cited earlier, that . percent of students felt they could earn an A in
a course without doing any of the reading.
Set 3. Have faculty made changes in their reading assignments in
recent years? Table summarizes findings regarding changes faculty
have made in reading assignments in recent years. Percentages are cal-
culated only on faculty who indicated having made changes (US: n = ;
Norway: n = ).
In both countries, large numbers of respondents indicated they now
assign less reading than in the past (US: . percent; Norway: . per-
cent). One important factor was clearly that students were not completing
assignments — one- third of faculty respondents in both countries indicated
they were now assigning less reading for this reason. Another change was
in text complexity. Among participants who had made changes in their
assignments, almost one- fifth of US faculty agreed they were now assign-
ing less dicult reading because students were not understanding the texts,
whereas in Norway the number was over half. Although we do not have a
definitive explanation for the dierence between the countries, it may be
relevant that the US data were from a selective private university, while the
Norwegian institutions were public and perhaps less selective, particularly
with the increased enrollments we earlier described.
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Baron and Mangen · Doing the Reading 271
The last two questions considered use of audio or video materials as
replacements for (not supplements to) written texts. Audio materials (e.g.,
podcasts) have made slight inroads in US curricula, and even less so in
Norway (table ). The more substantial technological adoption is video:
one- third of US faculty indicated substituting video materials such as You-
Tube videos, TED Talks, or movies in place of reading assignments, com-
pared with one- quarter of the Norwegian respondents (table ). These
comparatively low percentages in Norway can be expected to increase as
more courses and academic programs are oered online, incorporating
audio and video materials.
Survey participants were invited to indicate other kinds of changes they
have made and why. Among the US responses:
“I used to include supplemental reading for essays. I don’t anymore.”
“Students struggle to read and analyze scholarly literature thus I have
reduced the amount so we can improve critical reading skills.”
Norwegian responses included:
“Instead of having students read so much, I let them do work/tasks in class.”
“The variation of students is bigger so the better students contribute to some
more dicult texts, while the [presence of ] not- so- good students is a reason for
having more of the easier texts as an average.”
Set 4. Do faculty believe that digital technology is affecting the
amount and effectiveness of student reading? Table summarizes
the numerical findings regarding the extent to which faculty believes that
Table 6. Faculty changes in reading assignments
United States Norway
Assignment (n = 47) (n = 27)
Amount of reading assigned
Less than in the past 48.9% 40.7%
More than in the past 12.8% 3.7%
About the same 38.3% 55.6%
Reduced amount, complexity
Students not doing all the reading, so reduced amount 34.0% 32.0%
Students not understanding the reading, so used less
dicult reading 19.2% 56.0%
Substitute for reading assignments
More audio materials 14.9% 8.0%
More video materials 31.9% 24.0%
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272 Poetics Today 42:2
technology aects student reading. The US faculty were more likely than
their Norwegian counterparts to feel technology was influencing students’
academic reading. However, respondents in both countries who sensed an
influence had similar assessments: two- thirds of them felt technology was
responsible for students doing less academic reading, and four- fifths were
concerned technology was leading student reading to become shallower.
In both the online survey and follow- up conversations, a number of
respondents identified additional consequences of technology on academic
reading, both positive and negative:
Positive. “May also lead some students to read more.” (Norway)
“Easier access, lower cost.” (US)
“Technology supports learners — motivation.” (Norway)
Negative. “I don’t think students retain information when they read online.”
(US)
“Digital technologies reduce their ability to concentrate.” (Norway)
“They read more quickly these days. They miss a lot.” (US)
“I have found, almost invariably, that students read more and retain
better with print than digital copies or excer pts.” (US)
“I do think that digitization has a negative eect on the focus and
concentration, the deep reading of large amounts of text.” (Norway)
4.5. Additional Faculty Observations
In their open- ended responses and interviews, faculty members com-
mented on a range of issues regarding student reading practices and factors
shaping assignment decisions. Here is a representative sampling:
Table 7. Faculty perceptions on effects of technology on student reading
% answered yes
United
Question States Norway
A. Are digital technologies aecting the amount/ eectiveness
of academic reading? 87.7% 72.7%
B. If answered “yes” to question A, do you think digital
technologies are leading students to do less academic
reading than before? 62.0% 64.0%
C. If answered “yes” to question A, do you think digital
technologies are leading students to do more shallow reading
than before? 82.0% 80.0%
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Baron and Mangen · Doing the Reading 273
Students’ approaches to reading:
Amount and type of reading
“Except the very best students: students do less of the reading than before.”
(US)
“My students read less narrative than before.” (Norway)
Attention span
“I experience students’ attention span as shorter than before.” (Norway)
Ability to handle complex text
“Students’ expectations in making complicated stu more accessible
increases. I cannot conceive of a student reading Kant’s Critique of Pure Rea-
son.” (Norway)
Factors influencing faculty assignments:
Cost
“I cannot in good conscience ask my students to pay the outrageous cost of
books. I use web- available material and academic journal articles.” (US)
Pressures on student time available
“They work more, and this trend has increased over the last ten years. . . .
They are registered as full- time students now, too, but in practice they are
not.” (Norway)
Changes in curricular emphases
“There is a greater emphasis on practicality now. . . . It’s impossible to justify
‘long form’ reading in an environment that is anti- liberal arts.” (US)
Changes in student preparation
“Mass education has brought much more variation into the student popula-
tion in terms of reading qualifications.” (Norway)
5. Discussion
To better understand the evolving place of long- form reading in higher
education, we looked at the reading assignments faculty make, how much
assigned reading they estimate students are doing, what changes faculty
have made in assigned reading over time, and whether faculty sense digital
technology plays a role in assignment choices or student reading patterns.
We clarified at the outset some of the study’s limitations, including not
having clear measurements of how much short, medium, and long long-
form reading was being assigned or completed by students. We nonetheless
learned much from the data. Some of the discussion that follows takes into
account faculty open- ended remarks we were not able to include above out
of space considerations.
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274 Poetics Today 42:2
5.1. Amount Assigned
We saw evidence that the quantity of reading faculty are assigning under-
graduates is declining. Faculty comments in both the United States and
Norway supported previous anecdotal evidence that assignments of entire
books (long long- form) seem to be yielding to articles or chapters (medium
long- form). The relatively small number of books being assigned (especially
compared with reading loads in earlier decades) suggests further evidence
of this trend. Part of the faculty’s explanation for this change is that stu-
dents were not reading the material. A second factor is the cost of many
book- length works.
National context plays a role in how much reading is assigned. Norway’s
assignment structure is strongly regulated. Nonetheless, our study suggests
that at least some Norwegian faculty either publicly argue to reduce page
requirements or take matters into their own hands.
Current US pedagogical trends encourage faculty to incorporate dig-
ital resources into their syllabi, as well as to replace traditional reading
and writing assignments with formats such as group work, independent
research, and video production. In Norway, such digital materials seem
still more supplemental, perhaps given the national page guidelines.
5.2. How Much Reading Students Are Doing
In presenting our statistical findings, we suggested interpreting results cau-
tiously. Faculty were asked to make estimates based on no verifiable mea-
sures and to oer single answers, despite diversity across students.
At first blush, the averages in the United States and Norway might look
heartening. In both countries, compliance rates by the end of the semester
were estimated at almost two- thirds for introductory courses and nearly
three- quarters for advanced classes. Prior research suggested students were
averaging only – percent of assigned reading. What explains discrep-
ancies between earlier results (from students) and our own (from faculty)?
One possibility is that faculty are assigning less reading today. That is,
with eort comparable to that in earlier years, students are completing
more of the assigned reading. Another option is level of institutional selec-
tivity. Perhaps the universities we surveyed or students enrolled in classes
taught by faculty participants were academically selective. However, a
more likely explanation is that faculty may be more optimistic than war-
ranted about how much of the reading students are doing. Few of us want
to believe students can succeed in our courses without doing the assigned
reading. Research is needed here that compares estimates from both fac-
ulty and the students they teach both.
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Baron and Mangen · Doing the Reading 275
5.3. Impact of Technology
Many faculty sensed that digital technologies were leading students to do
less academic reading. Even more striking was strong faculty belief that
technology was causing shallower reading. Faculty worried about students
losing concentration, reading too quickly, not taking notes, or reading in
bits and snippets rather than for sustained periods of time.
These concerns are not unique to faculty. Numerous studies (e.g., Baron,
Calixte, and Havewala ; Mizrachi et al. ) document that a sub-
stantial majority of university students believe they concentrate better and
learn more when reading in print than digitally. The research literature
comparing learning from print versus screens is substantial, and we cannot
review it here. However, these studies provide strong evidence that print
reading generally leads to more learning than reading onscreen (Baron
; Delgado et al. ; Mangen, Olivier, and Velay ).
5.4. Extenuating Factors
Awareness of the role cost plays in reading assignments was evident, espe-
cially among the US faculty. In the United States, the solution is heavily
digital, while print remains stronger in Norway (and cost is also less of a
concern). Non- academic calls on students’ time were also recognized in
both countries as a factor in how much academic reading students were
doing. Being a full- time student does not necessarily imply spending sub-
stantial time outside of class studying.
Our study also recognized the potential role of shifts in student popu-
lations and academic goals when it comes to doing the reading. Besides
explicit comments about greater diversity in the student body (conceivably
linked to lower overall reading skills or motivation), some faculty indicated
assigning less complex reading because students weren’t understanding
the texts. Future investigations should probe what kinds of simplification
are occurring, how they relate to total amount of reading assigned, and
whether individual assignments constitute short, medium, or long long-
form reading.
6. Going Forward
Sustained, mindful reading seems to be declining in at least some sectors
of higher education. The question is, What should be done? One approach
is to work directly on increasing student reading compliance. Typical ped-
agogical tools are tests or quizzes on the reading assignments. Alternatives
include having students submit summaries, reading notes, or their anno-
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276 Poetics Today 42:2
tated texts. These approaches have two shortcomings. First, they make
more work for already overburdened faculty. Second, and more important,
they reinforce the notion that the purpose of reading is earning a particu-
lar course grade.
Faculty in many quarters are exploring how to get students to engage
with their reading rather than just “doing” it. A common strategy is pro-
viding students, in advance, with prompts with which to scaold the
reading. Another strategy (advocated by several study participants) is to
reduce the amount of reading assigned so students and faculty can focus
on in- depth analysis. A third technique (also noted in faculty comments)
is to have students engage in directed group work centered on the read-
ing. Models include having students discuss responses to reading prompts,
review one another’s textual annotations, and collectively annotate shared
digital documents (Miller et al. ).
If we wish to preserve long- form reading — especially long long- form — as
a critical component of higher education, we must turn a critical eye on
our own teaching practices. We cannot assume students will make sense of
the texts we assign — or even read them. If we believe that long- form read-
ing has both intellectual and personal benefits, we need to find pragmatic
ways of convincing students as well.
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