A 3-2-1 Approach to Undergraduate Reading Compliance and Critical Analysis

Abstract

Studies show only 20 to 40 percent of students read assigned texts and are prepared for class discussions. To address this issue we created the 3-2-1 Reading Assignment, in which students engage in critical reading and deep learning by providing three points that summarize the text, two points that analyze it, and one discussion question. In order to assess the effectiveness of this technique, we conducted a content analysis of 1,511 student assignments. We found that the use of this technique led to gradual increases in students’ ability to summarize and analyze readings as well as formulate higher-order questions.

Keywords:

• Reading compliance
• writing assignment
• critical thinking
• problem-centered learning

Notes

1 There have been some models designed to help students navigate difficulties with reading assignments, for example the Reading Apprenticeship Approach (Schoenbach, Greenleaf, and Murphy 2012). This is a deep, evidence-based perspective on why students find reading difficult and offers many techniques to help students move forward. Although initially developed for K-12, it is now widely used at colleges and universities. For more details see Fancsali et al. (2015) and visit at https://readingapprenticeship.org/.

2 There is extensive literature on Team-Based Learning (TBL) pedagogy, which predates the flipped classroom, and has demonstrated success for reading compliance. For more information please see publications and resources at http://www.teambasedlearning.org/ and https://learntbl.ca/.

3 We recognize there are multiple approaches to help students develop critical thinking skills. While the students in this study used the above approach, we also used a second approach in other classes, which was less specific about points of analysis and instructed students to write a short paragraph for each point of the analysis. Following the Reading Apprenticeship approach (Schoenbach, Greenleaf, and Murphy 2012), students were given the following guiding questions: “How and in what way are the readings connected to current events?;” “What is missing from the reading and why?;” “What ‘doesn’t work’ for you and why?;” “What are the similarities and differences between the different readings (i.e., current and previous readings)?.” On one hand, some students found this flexible version analysis easier and less demanding than the structured version. On the other hand, some students complained that the flexible analysis is confusing.

4 This sample only includes students that completed the assignments in both week 2 and week 12.