CNN/AP: Study: College students lack literacy for complex tasks

[DeepModem Mom]

Study: College students lack literacy for complex tasks
Friday, January 20, 2006


WASHINGTON (AP) -- More than half of students at four-year colleges -- and at least 75 percent at two-year colleges -- lack the literacy to handle complex, real-life tasks such as understanding credit card offers, a study found.

The literacy study funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the first to target the skills of graduating students, finds that students fail to lock in key skills -- no matter their field of study.

The results cut across three types of literacy: analyzing news stories and other prose, understanding documents and having math skills needed for checkbooks or restaurant tips.

Without "proficient" skills, or those needed to perform more complex tasks, students fall behind. They cannot interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure, understand the arguments of newspaper editorials, compare credit card offers with different interest rates and annual fees or summarize results of a survey about parental involvement in school.

"It is kind of disturbing that a lot of folks are graduating with a degree and they're not going to be able to do those things," said Stephane Baldi, the study's director at the American Institutes for Research, a behavioral and social science research organization....


http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/01/20/literacy.college.students.ap/index.html

[OKNancy]

1. Here is a General Discussion

thread from yesterday discussing the same study.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=186551

[DeepModem Mom]

2. Thanks, OKNancy! nt

[nickinSTL]

3. more evidence explaining why a Bachelor's degree means little...

It's the inevitable result of making a college education available to anyone who can either afford it or get a loan for it.

Getting into college isn't based on a person's ability in the classroom, but their ability to pay.

It's a pet peeve of mine.

A Bachelor's degree means now virtually what a high school diploma did 30 years ago.

If you want a high degree of literacy, look at Master's degree holders...though I expect those will be devalued soon enough (if they aren't on the way already).

[mike_c]

9. a pet peeve of mine too...

...and it's my life's work.

[bleedingheart]

22. a Master's degree can be bought as well..

[depakid]

34. and you'd be surprised how easy

A lot of grad students I see aren't even the caliber of sophomores anymore. What blows me away is not so much how little they know outside their narrow fields- but their inability to think critically and analyze basic stats!

[nickinSTL]

36. I can think critically, I believe...

I'm in a Master's program right now...but I must admit to being below par on stats. Just had a class which included statistics...yielded my lowest grade so far in grad school...a B. Fortunately, only one major paper was on stats...I could handle the rest.

[Burried News]

4. Life isn't a multiple choice test. nt

[NVMojo]

5. more reason why the Machine has taken over ...

[patrice]

6. All of the "co-operative learning" they do lets them cover their deficits.

That's also how they get through college now too. No one does anything completely by themselves.

When I did my (original) Master's research, I found plenty of support for the statement that there has been massive grade inflation going on in the U.S. for about 25 years now.

[tblue37]

14. I have a piece on my _Teacher, Teacher_ website

entitled "Does Not Play Well with Others." In it I complain about the emphasis on "cooperative learning." You might like to read it:

http://teacherblue.homestead.com/playswell.html

[patrice]

24. Right On!

You and I must be about the same age and my Master's is from KU. I taught Psychology (including Advance Placement Psych.) and English IV.

"Cooperative Learning" is so programmed now that I would bet that there are many people who think it is the only way to "learn"/"teach".

I've always been a Liberal and, though I don't teach anymore, I can remember having seriously negative discussions about CL with one of the most Conservative Social Studies teacher in my last big highschool near Tulsa, Ok. She and I also agreed about an alarming trend amongst the "brighter" students toward being what we called "Absolutely Relative", i.e. insisting that their own (i.e. relative) "truth" negates ANY other "truth". As bright as some of them were, they couldn't or wouldn't see the logical contradiction in that attitude.

The difference between your/my experience of learning and the more "cooperative" mode is that you, like me, can probably remember addressing some homework and hitting something you didn't know the answer to. You (probably) and I worked out a process for how to find or figure out the answer and then we used, and modified if necessary, that process later over and over again whenever you hit a road-block. People don't do that anymore; they rely on others, thus one of the most essential elements to cognitive development - CHALLENGE - is missing. The effects are concrete; I know. I had business with Home Depot this summer for the materials to construct a deck on my house. The staff IN THE LUMBER DEPARTMENT couldn't multiply nor divide. This is only one example of the failure of education I see around me and I live in Johnson County - It's not a financing problem.

[DemGa]

7. Depends on the college, of course.

The one I go to is pretty demanding.

[OnyxCollie]

8. Kids today are pretty damn stupid.

My girlfriend is a communication instructor at two universities. Recently, she brought to my attention something a student had written. "Puhledger." As in, "It has been my puhledger to take this class."

I am taking courses on art and, what else, political science. (I graduated with a BA fourteen years ago.) Watching students today, I am shocked at how disinterested they are in learning. In my art class, the instructor would call everyone over to see what he was demonstrating. Most students sat at their desks, never even bothering to look up.

Children are the future.

edit for typo

[anotherdrew]

10. personally I blame society...

I mean, do i even have to type the standard bill of indictment?

this has been warned about for decades, now we get to reap the harvest. The fact is college is a joke in this country, very few people care about anything but getting their ego's stroked, our civilization is truly crumbling. Soon we will HAVE to outsource and work overseas if any american wants a job actually DOING anything technical, management is the biggest joke of all in this country, utterly without skill or capability, most couldn't even begin to do the work they pretend to supervise.

[bluerum]

11. Understanding credit card offers is a "complex task" !?!? Geez - no

wonder * got re-elected.

[daleo]

13. The best analysis is "no thanks"

I must get ten credit card offers per month.

[Tiggeroshii]

16. Or..

Put their offer back in their postage paid envelope and mail it back to them including the original envlope it was sent in without filling anything out. If you do that, you'll see they might not take as much of an interest in you.... }(

[llmart]

28. I've been doing that for years.....

and I stopped getting the offers altogether. Haven't gotten one in about 7 or 8 years. I do that with all junk mail that has a returned, stamped envelope.

[Tiggeroshii]

31. Yeah, sometimes these credit card companies ask you to put a stamp

on there to help them save money. I'm not sure if these guys really need to save money, but if they had no money, it would certainly do the whole world a lot more good.

[bluerum]

39. Why didn't I think of that,,,,,,,,,, thanks. eom.

[jsamuel]

12. I would love to see the voting averages for the 25% and the 75%

LOVE TO SEE IT!

Oh well...

[Indy_Dem_Defender]

15. Just returned

to college after 5 years of trying to personally afford to come back. Some Of the things I notice in my English class no one wants to participate in class, the professor pretty much has to beg for someone to state an opinion, ask or answer a question. History class the professor ask what people where majoring in about a third of the class said Secondary Education, and about half of those wanted to coach H.S. Sports, I don't know alot about Academia but I don't believe there's a high volume need for HS sports coaches like these people think. Walking to class passing thru the parking lot no one has a car valued under $8K or older than a 96 model, most are imports Toyota's, Honda's, VW's, Volvo's, BMW's, along with American SUV's. I've seen about a 3rd of the students with I-Pods, along just about every student with a 300 dollar cell phones. I'm sure a number of them have this stuff provide by mommy & daddy, but I hear alot I can't get or make it financially, but they probably have a #350 dollar a month car payment.

[justabob]

23. I had the same experience

...especially in English classes. No one could be bothered to read the short stories (or books in lit class)... "Aw... do we have to?" waaaah! In that class the syllabus was completely abandoned and we ended up not covering half the stuff we were supposed to cover. One of my teachers told us about teaching at one of the other local colleges and havng to totally change his syllabus because the students wouldn't or couldn't keep up, and so complained to the school admin about this mean old teacher.... also threats of lawsuits because they didn't get A's. (My dad said to tell you he's gonna sue your ass if I don't get an A) I mean come on, it is like the students expect that by taking up desk space and simply staying semi-conscious they deserve a 4.0 GPA. I don't know how teachers/prof are supposed to do their jobs... especially adjunct teachers who live in fear of losing their classes. Never mind that the more serious students are also hurt by the inability/lack of motivation of the 75% who can't keep up.

[patrice]

27. Many students don't know the difference between "could" and "did".

[patrice]

26. Churches are selling "Teaching" as a way to Evangelize.

That's a Fact.

Churches do a lot of "career counseling" and networking.

[antonialee839]

17. They needed a study for that? All they had to do was look at

the moran running our country and saved themselves time and money.

[teryang]

18. These contracts and their modifications recently are difficult to...

...understand. The terms are defined in a screwball fashion, in hundreds of words of very small print. I'm trained to read contracts and I could not determine from the new rules governing the cards what the billing date deadlines were or when the penalties accrued after reading the contract over and over again.

Therefore, it is easy and safe to say, don't sign on and shred 'em. You really can't go wrong with that approach.

[Angry Girl]

19. Thank you, Laura Bush, our First Lady of "Literacy"

Pathetic woman, stupider than Peggy Hill ever could be. Doesn't even know how to spell the words "committ" and "hatered."

[bleedingheart]

20. I blame society, the parents and the kids....

today's children are keen on doing everything...FAST....add to that the fact that our society doesn't truly value the literate people among us...Look at the Gore/Bush race...people viewed the better educated better speaker as a "bore"...oh well look what that got us..

As for parents, it is amazing that some people don't share with their children information about how to live and the facts of life.

[bleedingheart]

21. by the way...my highschool had a class for the inept kids

who couldn't write checks or were unable to read a bank statement...it was called "LifeSkills" and nope I am not joking. If kids failed a test on basic life skills they had to take the LifeSkills class before graduating.

[wordpix2]

30. I have a lot of experience in education and it's a mess right now -

a reflection of our society and money spent on the illegal war.

[HockeyMom]

33. Both my daughters had something similar to this in 8th grade

Every student was given a lifestyle scenario. You are married, with 2 kids, making $..... Or your are single, making $....., etc. Your mortgage/rent is $...., your utilities are $...., your car payment is $...., groceries are $...., etc., etc. Do your budget for the month. Every other week, they were given an upset. Your kid had to go to the doctor (amount). Your car broke down (amount). Do you have enough in your disposable cash account to pay for this? Yada, yada, yada.

This was not for "inept" kids. Every single 8th grader had to do this. As my husband said to them at the time, "Welcome to the Real World, darlings."

[Igel]

25. The CNN story was a marginally rewritten version of the

press release, found here:
http://www.pewtrusts.com/ideas/ideas_item.cfm?content_item_id=3192&content_type_id=7&page=7&issue=22&issue_name=Higher%20education%20performance&name=Grantee%20Press%20Releases

If the link breaks or the DU server has a problem with it, there's a link from the main Pew site at http://www.pewtrusts.com.

Some additional bits from the press release:
**There are no significant differences between men and women in college in their average prose, document, and quantitative literacy - indicating that women may be bridging a divide that has long existed between the sexes.
**The average prose and quantitative literacy of Whites in 4-year institutions is higher than for any other racial/ethnic group, mirroring trends in the general population. The fact that white students also have the highest prose and document literacy among students in 2-year colleges provides further evidence that the literacy gap between minority and non-minority students persists.
*The literacy skills of college students is directly related to the education of their parents: children whose parents graduated college or attended graduate school have higher literacy than students whose parents did not graduate high school or stopped after receiving a high school diploma or GED.
**Despite variations in income, most differences in the literacy of students across income groups are not significant. The most significant disparity exists between students in 4-year institutions with the lowest and highest income backgrounds. Students in the highest income group (either their personal income or the income of their parents) have higher prose and document literacy than students in the lowest income group

And since I don't know if the 4-paragraph limit applies to responders to the posts, I'll stop there. The press release links to a pdf of the study:http://www.pewtrusts.com/pdf/The_Literacy_of_American_College_Students.pdf Original sources are always preferred to what the MSM produces out of already pre-digested findings.

My immediate take was that since the primary problem is innumeracy, we should look to the dumbing down of their science and math requirements as the culprit for any decline. However, they looked at specialization, technical versus other, for two-year colleges and saw no significant difference. "Technical" majors at four-year colleges did significantly better as a group; so did those that went through a remedial math course. Otherwise, things have simply gotten no worse, overall. The "overall" hides a wealth of differences, though.

[llmart]

29. Ever check out all the errors on CNN's website???

They're people need to learn to spell and proper grammar, too!

[Hermosa Beach Dem]

35. Oh, the irony!!!!!

Ever check out the error in your post - they're vs. their .....I hope you were being sarcastic!

[llmart]

38. Yes, I was.......

because I had just seen that error yesterday on CNN's website.

[Odin2005]

32. One thing I've noticed at my university...

...ist that professors are required to give "how did you like this course" questionares at the end of the semester. I know many classmates who gave a prof bad marks because he/she got a bad grade in the class, which means that professors are probably dumbing down the class, or making it easier to get a good grade, so they don't get too many bad marks from students.

:puke:

[nemo137]

37. Which is bullshit.

I failed calc last semester, because of my problems understanding the material and (I'll be honest) dragging my ass out of bed every morning at 8, but when the prof handed out course evaluations, I put low marks for "how did you enjoy the class" and high ones for "how well did the instructor present the material" and "how available was the professor for individual help." It's just petty to mark another person down for your lack of effort.

[lolly]

42. Course Evaluations--Hiring Decisions

Where I teach those Course Evals are a big factor in hiring and promotion decisions.

The Dept. insists--repeatedly--that they have evidence that students don't evaluate based on grades.

On one class I had last Spring, a student gave me a "1" in everything--that means "Well below average." Very thoughtful evaluation, right? One of the categories was "returns graded material in a timely matter." I returned everything within one class meeting of submission--so someone explain to me how that could be "Well below average!"

This student wrote in her comments all about how she'd gotten A's in high school and had fabulous scores on her high school writing tests, so my class was a waste of time for her.

Her writing? Very fluent, but almost no logical support. Her arguments tended to consist of "X is true because it is, because I say it is, because, well, it just is!" I would point this out to her on her rough drafts, and suggest sources for her to use to find evidence to prove her claims, and she would just ignore my comments.

But her evaluations are part of my dossier. The logical thing for me to do the next time I have such a student is to just give her the A she clearly does not deserve in hopes that she won't torpedo my chances for getting a contract renewed.

[occuserpens]

40. Fox rules

[debbierlus]

41. Because they do not teach critical thinking.......

I would bet everyone on this board would pass that test....

I truly believe the most logical people are the progressives....

(The neo-cons have a few that would pass the test, too...but they lack another vital quality....a human soul).

[VegasWolf]

43. Title should read, "American" college students lack critical ... nt