That’s not going to come as a big surprise. What leaves most of us a bit breathless and depressed are the numbers. The study referenced below cites four other studies in which more than 70 percent of the students reported not doing assigned reading. In
An interesting variety of different types of quiz questions and formats are used in two philosophy courses with the goal of encouraging students to come to class on time, prepared, and ready for discussion.
Every course has assignments, but do they get the attention they deserve or do the same versions end up in the syllabus year after year? How much variety is there in the assignments students complete, in degree programs or even across their years at the
As teachers, we see value in what we assign students, but students don’t always appreciate the relevance or understand the purpose of their assignments. Required readings are a great example of this disconnect. However, when students have some input into their learning, their response to
“Students can critically read in a variety of ways:
For some time now, students in my first-year biology course have been protesting that I’m assigning too much pre-class reading. I use the flipped classroom structure in most of my courses and that means students prepare for class by reading assigned pages in the textbook.
Many students do not arrive in our courses with college-level reading skills. That usually ends up meaning a couple of things. First off, they
A lot of students are in love with their highlighters, especially those bright, fluorescent-colored ones. They use them to highlight course materials, sometimes underlining whole pages of text. When I first saw a text so fluorescent that it all but glowed, I wondered why in
The pedagogical periodical Teaching Theology and Religion has a unique section. In fact, many of the discipline-based periodicals on teaching and learning have interesting and relevant features, which is one of the reasons why I continue to bemoan the positioning of so much of our
I’ve found another interesting study of students and reading which dovetails nicely with the research referenced in the July 25, 2012 post. I’m thinking that as the new academic year begins and readings are being selected and assigned, it’s beneficial to keep thinking about student
Magna Publications © 2023 All rights reserved
The consistent not-doing-the reading finding in the research and our classrooms confronts us with a number of questions. Yes, it’s a student problem, but one with large implications for teachers. We can explore questions generically but then I’d like to challenge you to consider them in light of your courses.
If students aren’t coming to class having done the reading, does that matter? Maybe for most students the better approach is doing the reading after they’ve been to class. But that’s a problem if the teacher is presenting material assuming students have at least some familiarity with it. The further complication is a bundle of evidence documenting that most after-the-fact reading happens just before exams. Perhaps that’s better than never reading but it doesn’t garner the research identified benefits of regular reading and it doesn’t make the most of simultaneous content exposure in the text and in class. If students aren’t coming prepared, what are the implications for you, for them?
Why aren’t students doing the reading? In this study they said they were too busy, which seems like a nice, conventional, not terribly truthful response. The more honest answer likely involves the fact that many students don’t like to read and aren’t very good at reading college-level material. The more sinister answer is they aren’t reading because they don’t have to. They can get the grades they need without doing the reading. The prof covers what they need to know for the exam. And for many students, the truth is they’d rather hear it than read it. It’s certainly easier. What are the reasons why students aren’t doing the reading in your course?
That leads us to ask, does learning suffer if students come to class not having done the reading? In the genetics course it did. “The importance of pre-lecture reading cannot be overstated. Not only does it prepare a student for the lecture they are about to receive, but the fruits of this work are also demonstrated in improved exam scores.” (p. 5) Do students learn less in your course if they don’t do the reading? Do you see that in exam scores? Do they see it?
Are there ways of helping students do the reading? In the referenced study, students were given prepared reading guides (ARMs, Active Reading Modules). They consisted of a variety of activities students could complete including concept mapping, outlining, drawing pictures, and using external resources. “Taken as a whole, it seems our intervention was ineffective at swaying student perceptions [as to the value of the readings] and we failed to identify a method to significantly change those perceptions.” (p. 5) In general, most students don’t see the value of reading. They don’t see it as skill worthy of development. They think textbooks are hard—lots of big words, long chapters, and boring details. They don’t think they’ll have to read text-like material after college. Do your students see reading as an essential professional skill?
How do we get students doing the reading? Most of us rely on extrinsic motivators. We quiz them on the reading, we give graded pre-lecture assignments, we have test questions on reading material not covered in class. And yes, there’s evidence that those approaches work in courses where they’re used. But do approaches like these teach students the value of reading? If they did, would we have these large percentages of students not doing the reading? Students need to discover for themselves that when it comes to learning, particularly when it comes to learning on their own, reading is one of the best, sometimes only, way to learn. Are the approaches you’re using effectively teaching students the value of reading?
The Journal of Microbiology is an open-access journal. I encourage you to read the full article cited here.
Reference: Gammerdinger, W. J. and Kocher, T. D. (2018). Understanding student perceptions and practices for pre-lecture content reading in the genetics classroom. Journal of Microbiology and Biology Education, 19 (2), 1-6.