I just got back from the local convenience store where I invested a quarter
of my pay check in lottery tickets: just preparing for my retirement. With
my "9-commandments plaque" (there's one that I still have some questions
about) firmly affixed to the wall next to my computer terminal, I now am
ready to respond to some teaching-related questions.
Gerald Peterson wrote:
> I have noticed at various times that students having the most
> difficulty in class also have trouble locating material in the text and
> understanding questions.... I was wondering if
> others have found that students having difficulty in class really do not
> seem to understand the questions being asked? Is this just a problem in
> how questions are worded, or are their confusions tied to
> reading/listening comprehension? It struck me because those in the
> class having test difficulty were especially prone to such confusions.
When students first enroll for courses at my school, they are supposed to
take placements tests for writing, math, and reading classes. Whenever a
student comes to my office and tells me that he/she has studied for the
tests in just the way I have discussed during class and still they are
getting D's and F's, I typically will look up their scores on the
reading-placement test. In the vast majority of cases, they have scored in
the range that places them into remedial-reading courses. In other words,
the little evidence I have suggests to me that students who enter schools
that have minimal selection criteria tend to have substandard reading
abilities. When I question these students, they often tell me that much of
the book is near-gibberish to them as are many of my test questions.
I first noticed how difficult it is for someone to study from a textbook
while I was helping my daughter (who was in fourth grade at the time). It
is very difficult to learn to identify important points in a textbook
reading, even when one's comprehension is good. It must be even more
difficult when one's comprehension of written material is poor, as it seems
to be for many of my students. When they take a test on this textbook
material, their poor reading skills make it difficult for them to determine
the meaning an intent of the questions. This is a "double whammy": they
aren't understanding well the textbook and they aren't understanding well
the test questions about the textbook material. I have written an
intro-psych textbook that, I believe, should be understandable to people
with relatively low reading skills; and I take care when writing my test
questions not to use words that are too complex. But I am constantly
surprised by poor vocabulary among my students. For example, I no longer
use the word "adolescence" in my courses unless I specifically define it
several times during class: many students have no idea what it means.
It may be illuminating to give your students a reading-comprehension test
and correlate scores on that test with scores on textbook material.
Jeff
--
Jeffry P. Ricker, Ph.D. Office Phone: (480) 423-6213
9000 E. Chaparral Rd. FAX Number: (480) 423-6298
Psychology Department [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Scottsdale Community College
Scottsdale, AZ 85256-2626
"Science must begin with myths and with the criticism of myths"
Karl Popper
“No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up.”
Lily Tomlin
Listowner: Psychologists Educating Students to Think Skeptically (PESTS)
http://www.sc.maricopa.edu/sbscience/pests/index.html
