Literacy

[seayakin]

I was at a conference recently where the speaker talked about the wretched literacy rates in the United States. He cited the study (National Assessment of Adult Literacy NAAL – A First Look at the Literacy of American Adults in the 21st Century - http://nces.ed.gov/NAAL/PDF/2006470_1.PDF) One of the things that shocked the crowd of university librarians was that only 53% of college graduates were proficient and reading prose, 62% were proficient at reading a document, and 43% were proficient at reading and understanding quantitative information.

Proficient is defined as indicating the “skills necessary to perform more complex and challenging literacy activities." And includes more specifically, the following:

■ reading lengthy, complex, abstract prose texts as well as
■ synthesizing information and making complex inferences
■ integrating, synthesizing, and analyzing multiple pieces of
information located in complex documents
■ locating more abstract quantitative information and using it
to solve multistep problems when the arithmetic operations
are not easily inferred and the problems are more complex
comparing viewpoints in two editorials
■ interpreting a table about blood pressure, age,
and physical activity
■ computing and comparing the cost per ounce
of food items

Many of my colleagues would have defined these as basic reading skills not proficient.

What do the critical thinkers on this forum think and what does it say of critical thinking in higher education?

 

[gypsynuke]

If you've spent any time around college students, this isn't as shocking as you might expect. I joined the Navy after high school and thought I was perhaps missing something by not attending a university. When I would meet students who were my age and older at parties I was astounded at how ignorant they were, in terms of vocabluary, grammar, current events, history or their reasoning abilities. It was appaling at first, but now I just see it as the way things are. Being a student doesn't necessarily mean you can reason or have an interest in learning.

 

[Marquis de Carabas]

So, wait, you're saying illiterate people don't get high blood pressure?

 

[seayakin]

If you've spent any time around college students, this isn't as shocking as you might expect. I joined the Navy after high school and thought I was perhaps missing something by not attending a university. When I would meet students who were my age and older at parties I was astounded at how ignorant they were, in terms of vocabluary, grammar, current events, history or their reasoning abilities. It was appaling at first, but now I just see it as the way things are. Being a student doesn't necessarily mean you can reason or have an interest in learning.

The statistics do not refer to people who are currently in college but have graduated. Presumably, college should address some of these competencies but obviously it hasn't. For instance, according to this research 57% of graduates have trouble reading and understanding a blood pressure chart.

 

[Zbu]

As a near-college graduate, I must admit that while college could start teaching these aspects, the real place for this is the public school system. If you get a diploma you should have been taught how to think, act, and how to do such basic things. Having colleges be responsible for that only reinforces the idea that education should be paid for, not given, and that could lead to very big problems a few years on.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I think literacy would improve a great deal if schools, at elementary level up through and including high school level, required less busywork and permitted more free reading. Grammar, vocabularly, reading comprehension, and writing ability all come from reading a lot, not from filling out worksheets or answering questions in a textbook. If children learn to love reading, they will do so. As it is, there are a shocking number of adults who simply do not read for pleasure.

 

[gypsynuke]

The statistics do not refer to people who are currently in college but have graduated. Presumably, college should address some of these competencies but obviously it hasn't. For instance, according to this research 57% of graduates have trouble reading and understanding a blood pressure chart.

Maybe it's just my opinion, but I think if you don't enter college with these abilities you won't necessarily be able to aquire them later. In regards to the blood pressure chart, if you're capable of abstract thought and of reading and interpreting information prior to entering college, you should be able to interpet, with instruction, this particular set of data easily. If you enter a university more or less incapable of learning, you'll get nothing out of it.

 

[Steve]

If you enter a university more or less incapable of learning, you'll get nothing out of it.

Except a degree, apparently (I note that the OP refers to college graduates).

 

[gypsynuke]

Except a degree, apparently (I note that the OP refers to college graduates).

Right, my point being that you shouldn't learn how to read after college. That should be a requirement for acceptance.

 

[steve s]

One of the things that irritates me about studies like this is that they always concentrate on high-school or college students. But the results are probably the same for the rest of the population. It's always something like "Sixty percent of college students can't find Afghanistan on a map." Well guess what. I doubt most 50 or 60 year olds could find it either. [/end of rant]

Steve S.

 

[TimmyBerry]

I was at a conference recently where the speaker talked about the wretched literacy rates in the United States. He cited the study (National Assessment of Adult Literacy NAAL – A First Look at the Literacy of American Adults in the 21st Century - http://nces.ed.gov/NAAL/PDF/2006470_1.PDF) One of the things that shocked the crowd of university librarians was that only 53% of college graduates were proficient and reading prose, 62% were proficient at reading a document, and 43% were proficient at reading and understanding quantitative information.

Well, that's refreshing to read about!

Oslo, here I come.

 

[seayakin]

One of the things that irritates me about studies like this is that they always concentrate on high-school or college students. But the results are probably the same for the rest of the population. It's always something like "Sixty percent of college students can't find Afghanistan on a map." Well guess what. I doubt most 50 or 60 year olds could find it either. [/end of rant]

Steve S.

The study also has breakdowns by age, gender, and race. I was also curious about the same question because some times it seems like these studies sound like the old man sitting on a porch saying "these dam kids today don't know anythinig, when I was a boy...."

Page 10 of the report does show some of the information by age. People over 64 have significantly lower literacy rates than 19-64 year olds which to me says that education has improved at some level in the last 50 years.

My concern about the rates of literacy among college graduates is similar to other concerns posted on this forum regarding what colleges are teaching. As gypsynuke said, these are skills students should have entering college not graduating from it.

 

[Jorghnassen]

I can't read or write...

 

[seayakin]

I can't read or write...

You must be reading our minds and using telekenesis to create words on the screen. I think you should claim the million dollar prize.

 

[joesixpack]

... I was astounded at how ignorant they were, in terms of vocabluary, grammar, current events, history or their reasoning abilities. It was appaling at first, but now I just see it as the way things are. Being a student doesn't necessarily mean you can reason or have an interest in learning.

University provides the OPPORTUNITY to learn, but dosen't seem to require it in order to graduate.

 

[drkitten]

I was at a conference recently where the speaker talked about the wretched literacy rates in the United States. He cited the study (National Assessment of Adult Literacy NAAL – A First Look at the Literacy of American Adults in the 21st Century - http://nces.ed.gov/NAAL/PDF/2006470_1.PDF) One of the things that shocked the crowd of university librarians was that only 53% of college graduates were proficient and reading prose, 62% were proficient at reading a document, and 43% were proficient at reading and understanding quantitative information.

Proficient is defined as indicating the “skills necessary to perform more complex and challenging literacy activities."

I think this definition is a problem, and it reflects a larger-scale problem in literacy studies generally.

Basically, the definition of "literacy" keeps changing.

Two hundred years ago, "literacy" meant that you could sign your own name. Today, it requires that one be skilled at "ntegrating, synthesizing, and analyzing multiple pieces of
information located in complex documents."

For any fixed set of skills -- for example, the ability to read this document and to answer these questions about it, history seems to paint a pretty clear picture of increasing performance -- larger and larger percentages of people can answer the questions right. IQ theorists know this as the "Flynn effect" and it's one of the reasons that the tests need to be continually renormalized.

However, the skill demands of modern society have not remained fixed; the degree of literacy necessary for me to play a useful role in society in 1956 are different from the ones that I need today.

Many of my colleagues would have defined these as basic reading skills not proficient.

Yeah, well, your colleagues have an inflated view of "basic."

 

[cbish]

I think this definition is a problem, and it reflects a larger-scale problem in literacy studies generally.

Basically, the definition of "literacy" keeps changing.

Two hundred years ago, "literacy" meant that you could sign your own name. Today, it requires that one be skilled at "ntegrating, synthesizing, and analyzing multiple pieces of
information located in complex documents."

For any fixed set of skills -- for example, the ability to read this document and to answer these questions about it, history seems to paint a pretty clear picture of increasing performance -- larger and larger percentages of people can answer the questions right. IQ theorists know this as the "Flynn effect" and it's one of the reasons that the tests need to be continually renormalized.

However, the skill demands of modern society have not remained fixed; the degree of literacy necessary for me to play a useful role in society in 1956 are different from the ones that I need today.

Yeah, well, your colleagues have an inflated view of "basic."

IMO this has been the so-called "failure of our educational system". It's not the system failing per se, but the increased pressure put on the system that has demanded a more educated society in the past century.

 

[seayakin]

I think this definition is a problem, and it reflects a larger-scale problem in literacy studies generally.

Basically, the definition of "literacy" keeps changing.

Two hundred years ago, "literacy" meant that you could sign your own name. Today, it requires that one be skilled at "ntegrating, synthesizing, and analyzing multiple pieces of
information located in complex documents."

I have seen my colleagues also missquote the study saying that that 57% of college graduates are illiterate. As you point out, this isn't the case. Furthermore, I would certainly agree that when your looking at data over time, the definitions need to be consistent.

For any fixed set of skills -- for example, the ability to read this document and to answer these questions about it, history seems to paint a pretty clear picture of increasing performance -- larger and larger percentages of people can answer the questions right. IQ theorists know this as the "Flynn effect" and it's one of the reasons that the tests need to be continually renormalized.

However, the skill demands of modern society have not remained fixed; the degree of literacy necessary for me to play a useful role in society in 1956 are different from the ones that I need today.

It appears that a college education doesn't insure much beyond minimal levels of literacy as defined by NAAL. Is there a level of literacy college students should have?

I would argue they should be at a minimum, proficient using NAAL's definition.

 

[drkitten]

It appears that a college education doesn't insure much beyond minimal levels of literacy as defined by NAAL. Is there a level of literacy college students should have?

I would argue they should be at a minimum, proficient using NAAL's definition.

Well, you're welcome to make that argument, certainly.

I would want to see better examples of exactly what "proficient" entails under this definition before I agreed with you, though. As an example, " locating more abstract quantitative information and using it to solve multistep problems when the arithmetic operations are not easily inferred and the problems are more complex" could be read as a description of research-level statistics, depending upon the specific problem to which you are applying it.

The other problem, of course, is the traditional "use it or lose it" issue. For people who have been out of school for some time, their skills on abstract academic-style problems may have dropped substantially. For example, calculating price per ounce of foodstuffs is a relatively easy problem -- if you can remember how many ounces there are to a pound.

 

[seayakin]

Well, you're welcome to make that argument, certainly.

I would want to see better examples of exactly what "proficient" entails under this definition before I agreed with you, though. As an example, " locating more abstract quantitative information and using it to solve multistep problems when the arithmetic operations are not easily inferred and the problems are more complex" could be read as a description of research-level statistics, depending upon the specific problem to which you are applying it.

The other problem, of course, is the traditional "use it or lose it" issue. For people who have been out of school for some time, their skills on abstract academic-style problems may have dropped substantially. For example, calculating price per ounce of foodstuffs is a relatively easy problem -- if you can remember how many ounces there are to a pound.

Looking more closely at their assessment design, it is difficult to tell exactly what the assessment instrament looked like. I was hoping I could find what "proficient" entails by seeing exactly what kinds of questions they asked but their web site does not seem to provide more specific information than their definitions.

One issue I did not think of is the "use it or lose it" issue. I agree this is important depending on how recent these grads were. Since they took people from all age demographics who may or may not be recent grads.