Moria Dailey
Published: February 8, 2006
Less than 25 percent of two-year college students and less than 40 percent of four-year college students lack proficient literacy skills, according to a recent study conducted by the American Institutes for Research.
Along with college students, the study also tested average American adults. Two-year-college students scored significantly below four-year-college students, according to the study.
Participants were tested in three areas of literacy: prose, document, and quantitative.
Prose literacy refers to the skills needed to read thoroughly and comprehend news stories, brochures and instructional material. Participants were given a passage or excerpt to read and then asked a question based on what they had just read.
“This society has not put proper emphasis on education in liberal arts,” Dr. Guangping Zeng, an English professor at PJC, said. He elaborated that he has had many students who lack basic skills in grammar and comprehension.
“I don’t know [why students are unprepared], but I don’t think high school sufficiently prepares students,” Zeng said.
Only 23 percent of two-year-college students scored proficient in prose literacy, as opposed to 38 percent of four-year-college students.
Document literacy refers to the knowledge and skills needed to perform document tasks such as filling out and/or comprehending information provided by job applications, maps, tables, and food or drug labels.
Participants were given a piece of information containing both numerals and words and then asked a question referring to a numeral in the piece.
In document literacy, only 23 percent of two-year-college students scored proficient while 40 percent of four-year-college students scored proficient in the same category.
Quantitative literacy refers to using information and solving problems based on text imbedded in printed materials, such as balancing a checkbook, completing an order form or determining the amount of interest on a loan based on an advertisement, the study explained.
Participants were given a short “word problem” along with the information needed to complete the problem in the form of an advertisement or another common form, and then asked to compute an answer based off the information.
Quantitative literacy was apparently the most challenging for both two-year and four-year college students, with two-year students scoring 18 percent proficient and four-year scoring 34 percent.
Though the percentage of proficient students may seem low, there is a bright light at the end of the tunnel – all college students scored higher than adults who are not currently attending college. Only 13 percent of adults scored proficient in every literacy category.
According to the study, there is not a large difference between students completing programs with different academic majors, nor is there a major difference between students working on an undergraduate degree (excluding those working on an associate’s degree) and those working on any level of post-graduate degree.
This information should be viewed as a cause of concern for many college students; without these basic skills measured by the study, students run the risk of falling behind in their classes, and also not having the necessary skill to perform all tasks required of them in daily living, such as figuring out which credit card has the best rates or how much to tip a server in a restaurant.
“I find that as far as comprehension is concerned, it’s not taught in high school because it doesn’t have to be,” Adam Cope, a philosophy major at PJC, said. Cope said he sees a lot of students resisting the work load that they are given once they attend college because it’s “not like high school.”
Cope cites television as a possible reason for students to have problems with reading comprehension.
“With reading, you have to interpret what you’re reading – figure out what it means to you. There’s more legwork involved. With TV and movies, all the legwork is done already,” Cope said. He also mentioned that while reading takes time, television is instantaneous.
A lack of interest also seems to be a problem among college students, Zeng said.
Tom Bailey, an English and literature professor at PJC, said that he feels that somehow a love of reading needs to be instilled in students starting in primary and high school.
“People that have developed a love of reading do better,” Bailey said.