Reading Across the Curriculum at an Urban Community College: Student and Faculty Perspectives on Reading

ABSTRACT

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 administered to students to gather information on their reading practices, beliefs, and attitudes. A second survey was distributed to full-time faculty to gather information on assignments, practices, and beliefs regarding reading. Findings indicate that many students do not complete assigned readings. Further, women students spend more time on reading and attend class more often having completed assigned reading than men. There are discrepancies between students’ and faculty’s assessments of students’ reading abilities, whether reading is essential to course success and between the kinds of readings commonly assigned and those students enjoy reading. The study identified areas for further research on reading in community college including the relationship between gender, reading compliance, and community college outcomes; the effectiveness of reading compliance strategies; the relationship between PowerPoint use and student reading; and students’ use of active reading strategies. The findings also point out the need for pedagogical innovation in the teaching of reading in community college, namely through the implementation of reading across the curriculum programs.

Notes

¹. In 2014, 75.4% of Freshmen had passed the basic skills tests in reading and 70.4% in writing (Kingsborough, 2015b).

². Liberal Arts is the college’s largest major. Of all degrees awarded in 2014–2015, 38.7% were in Liberal Arts. Criminal Justice and Biology also rank among the top five majors at the college (Kingsborough, 2014b).

³. In 2014, the most recent year for which data are available, there were 365 full-time faculty at the college, thus, the study participants represent approximately one quarter of full-time faculty at the college (Kingsborough, 2014d).

⁴. It is interesting to note that just over half of faculty respondents report assigning 11–30 pages of reading per week (11–20 pages 26.7%; 21–30 pages 26.7%) for each of their courses.

⁵. Arum and Roska (2011) found that on average students spent 12 hours per week studying outside of class and that two-thirds of their respondents had taken a course that required 40 pages of reading per week in the previous semester.

⁶. In 2014, 60% of graduates were women and 40% were men (Kingsborough, 2014a).