The Reading Practices and Study Behaviors of Developmental and Nontraditional Community College Students. M Cecil Smith. Robert J.

Transcription

1 Reading Practices / 1 The Reading Practices and Study Behaviors of Developmental and Nontraditional Community College Students M Cecil Smith Robert J. Keller Department of Educational Psychology, Counseling and Special Education Northern Illinois University DeKalb, Il Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Mid-Western Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL, October 13-16, 1993.

2 Reading Practices / 2 The Reading Practices and Study Behaviors of Developmental and Nontraditional Community College Students This study examined the everyday reading practices and study-related reading behaviors of a sample of community college students. Although there is little research on such students' reading and studying skills, many of these students have characteristics that put them at risk for academic failure, including poor academic performance in high school, poor study skills, and low standardized test scores. 48 students in a study skills course kept a Reading Activity Method (RAM) diary for 12 weeks in order to examine their own reading and studying behaviors. Differences were apparent between older, nontraditional students and younger, developmental students on measures such as amount of reading time and reading volume. The nontraditional students were more vigilant in recording their reading activity. Implications for use of the RAM diaries in classroom settings and study skills programs are discussed.

3 Reading Practices / 3 The Reading Practices and Study Behaviors of Developmental and Nontraditional Community College Students The purpose of the study was to examine the everyday reading practices and study-related reading behaviors of a sample of community college students. This research was motivated, in part, by the need to examine college students' general reading and studying-related reading activities. Also, there is a little research on adults' everyday reading behaviors and how these behaviors relate to their academic, work-related, and personal achievements. The second author teaches at the community college where the study was conducted. Many of his students possess characteristics that put them at risk for academic failure: poor academic preparation and performance in high school; lack of appropriate study skills; and low test scores. In attempting to assist his students in developing their reading and study skills and to improve their test preparedness, he was struck by the apparent lack of research on community college students' reading and studying activities. We have, in fact, found no research examining reading and study practices of community college adults, and the relationship between reading practice and academic success among such students. Community college students represent a different population than university undergraduates, on which most study skills and reading research has been conducted. That research, while informative, may not be directly applicable in assisting community college students with their study skills. We also want to describe a specific method that we used to obtain reading behavior data among our subjects. This method, we believe, has potentially widespread application for both educational researchers and practitioners, including those concerned with assessing and developing students' reading and study skills. Previous research has evaluated the effects of study skills programs (Hughes & Graham, 1992), particularly those that teach techniques such as SQ3R, or more recently, provide metacognitive strategy instruction (Aaronson, 1987; O'Neill, 1992). These interventions have focused on enhancing students' reading comprehension rather than promoting reading practices, however. Previous research has also shown that older and better-educated adults exhibit more diversity in their reading practices and the types of reading which they do, tend to be more motivated to engage in reading tasks, and have more positive attitudes towards reading than do younger, less-educated adults (Guthrie, Seifert, & Kirsch, 1986; Smith & Stahl, 1993). We expected, then, that there would be interesting differences in reading practices among our subjects. Sample -15 older (mean age = 31.3 years) nontraditional students; -returning to college to improve their work-related skills; -entering or returning to college after a lengthy break from schooling; -taking a study skills course as an elective. -33 younger (mean age = 20.6 years) developmental studies students who lacked the basic skills necessary for success in college (many of these Ss were athletes); -scored below criterion levels on the ACT and the Nelson-Denny Reading Test. -required to take a study skills course. -All of the students were enrolled in the study skills course taught by the second author.

4 Reading Practices / 4 The study skills course focused on: -how to read textbooks (e.g., digesting information, identifying main ideas), -listening and notetaking skills, and -the SQ3R studying method. Periodically, students were tested over their mastery of these skills. The class met once per week for 16 weeks. Another aspect of the course focused on developing effective time management skills. In order to provide students with a relatively simple method for determining how effectively they used their study time, Keller had students keep a daily record of their studying and reading activities. The underlying rationale here was that this activity would provide an objective account of the amount of time that students spent preparing for class assignments, tests, and the like. A variant of the Reading Activity Method (RAM) diary was used to gather data on students study reading. The RAM diary methodology is based on time use research which has examined relationships between personal well-being and the ways in which people allocate their time among various everyday activities (Robinson, 1985). Time use diaries, such as RAM, offer several advantages: -allow events to be recorded as they happen, or immediately afterwards, so forgetting is avoided; -depending upon how they are structured, diaries can provide quite comprehensive data -provide data which could otherwise only be obtained via observation or interview. Observation is costly. Interviews are constrained by the limitations of subjects' memories. Generally, diary data is more valid and reliable than interview or questionnaire instruments (Carp & Carp, 1981). Several problems have also been noted concerning time diary methodology, not all of which we addressed in this study. These problems include: -diaries require extensive and long-term cooperation of the part of Ss; -social desirability may arise as a mitigating factor affecting the validity of the data. Students recorded the following information in their reading diaries: -day/date -time of day -reading source -setting (where reading occurs, e.g., home, work, library) -amount of time spent reading (total number of minutes) -volume of reading (total number of pages) -purpose for reading (e.g., work, school, leisure) -rating of enjoyment for each reading source (5="very enjoyable"). Students were assigned to keep these diaries for 12 weeks of the 15 week semester. They were encouraged to record all of their reading, including not only for school, but for other purposes as well (e.g., work, personal reasons). An explicit expectation was that much of students' reading would be school-related. Four times over the semester in-class discussions concerned the contents of students' RAM diaries. The students were taught how to examine changes or to look for trends in their reading activities based on the information that they noted in their RAM diaries. For example, it was expected that, around test times, school-related reading (e.g., textbooks) would be clearly evident over personal or leisure reading.

5 Reading Practices / 5 Results Nontraditional (NT) students recorded their reading activity for an average of 30 days over the semester and the developmental (DV) for an average of only 21 days. This difference was significant, t=7.38, df=46, p <.01. Another telling difference between the two groups was that the DV Ss recorded an average of 29 reading events for the 12 week period, while NT Ss recorded an average of 130 reading events. This indicates that the NT Ss were more vigilant and conscientious in recording their reading activity than were the DV Ss. We next looked at mean differences in Ss' reading time per reading event. Here, differences were small, but approached significance (p =.052). DV Ss read an average of minutes (s.d.=30.61) per event, while NT Ss read an average of minutes (s.d.=42.09) per event. This indicates that subjects were either reading more than one text source per any reading event (and failed to record these events separately), or were devoted lengthy periods of time to the study of a single text source. We then examined mean differences in reading volume (e.g., number of pages read) per reading event. Here, significant differences were obtained favoring the DV Ss, F=2.89 (1, 150), p <.01. DV Ss read an average of pages (s.d.=80.95) per event, while NT Ss read an average of pages (s.d.=47.65) per event. Given the large standard deviations on this dependent variable, we are led to question the accuracy or care with which students--especially the DV Ss--recorded their reading volume. Other differences have not been analyzed to date, but we plan to look at the specific sources of materials students read, in what settings they did most of their reading, as well as for what specific purposes. We suspect that other interesting differences between the two groups will emerge. Discussion Our discussion of the effects of using the RAM diaries to promote students' reading activities and study habits is limited to impressionistic data derived from class discussions with and observations of students. Generally speaking, the RAM diaries appeared to be of more benefit to the NT Ss than to the DV Ss. The NT Ss approached the RAM task more seriously, and more vigilant in recording their reading activity, and then using this data to make changes in their reading and studying practices than did the DV Ss. The DV Ss appeared to view the study skills course as two credit hours of an "easy A", and so were less motivated to engage in an activity in which they saw little value. Such behavioral differences are likely due to maturation and different long and short-term goals between the two groups. We haven't looked at this yet, but we suspect that students were more likely to record their reading a few days prior to scheduled class discussions of their reading activity or prior to examinations. This is suggested by the fact that, on average, NT Ss recorded for only 36% of the total possible semester days, and DV Ss recorded for only 25% of the total possible days. We believe that the RAM diary is a useful tool for examining students' everyday reading and study-related reading activities. Data contained in the diaries can be useful in teacher-student conferences, for example, or useful in tracking changes in studying behavior over the course of a semester. However, more work needs to be done to develop methods for assisting students in using the information in their diaries in ways which will help foster more effective reading and studying skills and habits. The issue of social desirability in responses remains a vexing problem, but may be ameliorated for de-

6 Reading Practices / 6 emphasizing any implied evaluative aspects of the RAM diary. Finally, more research is needed which examines the reading activities, studying skills, and test preparation abilities of community college students. These students tend to be at great risk for academic failure, but little is known about how they differ from university students.

7 Reading Practices / 7 References Aaronson. S. (1987). Metacognitive dialogue: A strategy to increase levels of processing among community college students. Research & Teaching in Developmental Education, 3, Carp, F.M., & Carp, A. (1981). The validity, reliability, and generalizability of diary data. Experimental Aging Research, 7, Guthrie, J.T., Seifert, M., & Kirsch, I.S. (1986). Effects of education, occupation, and setting on reading practices. American Educational Research Journal, 23, Hughes, J.A., & Graham, S.W. (1992). Academic performance and background characteristics among community college transfer students. Community Junior- College Quarterly of Research and Practice, 16, O'Neill, S.P. (1992). Metacognitive strategies and reading achievement among developmental students in an urban community college. Reading-Horizons, 32, Robinson, J.P. (1985). The validity and reliability of diaries versus alternative time use measures. In F.T. Juster & F.P. Stafford (Eds.), Time, goods, and well-being (pp ). Ann Arbor, MI: Survey Research Center-ISR. Smith, M C., & Stahl, N.A. (1993, April). Adults' reading practices and activities: Age, educational, and occupational effects. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. Atlanta, GA.