Professors and students have contradictory views of course reading. Professors believe that reading outside of the classroom is essential in optimizing learning. However, students often find the readings to be time-consuming, not necessary to pass the class, and an option rather than a requirement. We surveyed 449 undergraduate university students…

Building on work that brings literacy instruction and student science learner identity together, this study addresses a gap in research related to student experiences as readers in middle school science classrooms. To understand student perceptions of pedagogical approaches to reading in science, we asked 45 middle school students to reflect on…

The transition from high school to college is challenging for many students, especially first-generation college students. College courses require disciplinary specific reading, writing, and thinking skills not often taught in high school, such as reading and analyzing complex texts and constructing original arguments in discipline-specific…

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…

The author presents self-report data from students in three upper-level undergraduate courses to illustrate the comparative effectiveness of different out-of-class assessment approaches in promoting completion and comprehension of reading assignments. Students reported agreeing or strongly agreeing that all three assignments motivated them to…

The literature reveals that no adequate instrument exists to measure college students' attitudes toward academic reading even though such attitudes are crucial for reading compliance and learning from text. To remedy this, the authors created and refined an attitude survey, administering it to 855 university students across four iterations. The…

The ability to interpret experimental data is essential to understanding and participating in the process of scientific discovery. Reading primary research articles can be a frustrating experience for undergraduate biology students because they have very little experience interpreting data. To enhance their data interpretation skills, students…

A common source of frustration for college instructors is getting their students to read. Since the 1970s, studies have shown that no more than 30 percent of students complete a reading assignment on any given day. But what can be done? What strategies can instructors use to make certain that their students read? Do pop or announced quizzes work…

This research analyses what happens when a critical reading activity based on a press article dealing with an energy-related problem is implemented with two groups of students of 13-14 years old and 16-17 years old in the same school (a total of 117 students). Specifically, the research analyses the students' profiles from the standpoint of…

Studies the reading demands placed on college freshmen (amount, purpose, and relationship to course examinations of required reading) and students' perceptions of these demands. (SR)

Extracts from four case studies of student readers describe how students approached the reading of the same text, the students' general approach to academic reading, and their feelings about reading and being a student. Suggests that the normally neutral or pleasurable private activity of reading is disturbed in the academic context by the threat…

This article describes a reading and writing project designed for an undergraduate survey course in mathematics. For the Math Book Club, students in groups of four read and discuss one of six books related to mathematics and the history of mathematics. As part of the assignment, students take turns developing discussion questions and summarizing…

A study sought to describe the nature of teacher and student behaviors related to textbook reading assignments at the secondary school level, and to explore the relationship between the amount of time secondary school teachers devoted to specific assignment-related behaviors and students' subsequent performance on the assignments. The sample…