According to a recent literacy study, Johnny still can’t read, at least not very well, but he’s also attending and even preparing to graduate from college.
Johnny is also about to graduate from college with an inability to balance a checkbook, and he can’t make a proper judgment call about credit card offers because he doesn’t understand the different interest rates and annual fees.
According to a recently reported study, Johnny is part of a legion of American college students who suffer several different academic shortcomings.
The recent study found that only about 30 percent of two-year students have barely minimum math skills, according to a recent study funded by Pew Charitable Trusts.
According to this study, more than half of the student populations of four-year institutions and approximately 75 percent of student populations in two-year institutions cannot comprehend credit card offers.
The study further claimed that most college students lacked the ability to comprehend important documents and evaluate news articles.
Many college students are bereft of the math skills required not only to balance checkbooks but also to make restaurant tips.
The study points out that students cannot decipher tables about exercise and blood pressure, or grasp the rhetoric of newspaper editorials or insightfully recite the results of surveys. However, some students are modestly adept at finding locations on maps, the survey stated.
Stephane Baldi, the literacy study’s director at the American Institutes for Research, stated to CNN that “it is kind of disturbing that a lot of folks are graduating with degrees and they’re not going to be able to do those things.”
Joni Finney, vice president of the National Center for Public and Higher Education, told CNN that the “states have no idea about the knowledge and skills of their college graduates.”
To add to the dismal picture, the study reportedly elaborated that only 20 percent of students aiming for the four-year degree had only minimal calibrating and quantitative abilities.
According to CNN, this recent college study used the same test used by the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, which is the government’s test for adults on English literacy.
The recent results of the government’s test revealed that one in 20 adults is illiterate. CNN reported that the tests used by the government and by the administrators of the college survey were deployed to 1, 827 students in both public and private schools. CNN assured readers that there was a margin of sampling error of either plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Department Chair of Academic Development Tim Bohan questioned the validity of the survey reported by CNN.
“You need to ask how many people were in the study and consider age and amount of exposure. How many high school students will have had the exposure to credit card use? Young adults just out of high school haven’t been exposed to interest rates and credit cards,” he said and called the survey’s findings on American college students’ math abilities as reported by CNN “a little skewed.” Especially in regard to the finding that 30 percent of two-year college students had just rudimentary math skills, he remarked, “I’d be surprised if it were really that high.”
In regard to the college survey’s test administered to a representative sample of 1, 827 students, Bohan said, “that’s a pretty small sample of students. That’s not even one eighth of BC’s student population. That’s not a very good representational sample.”
Bohan remarked that reported statistics should be taken with a grain of salt.
“Anybody can do anything with statistics,” he said.
Wanda Boardman, departmental assistant for the Developmental Education and Learning Centers, said that college students’ academic problems may stem from a lack of maturity and a general inability to take school seriously. However, she expressed disdain for the school system itself.
“Kids enter kindergarten too early,” she said. She also remarked that institutions just give students diplomas, which contributes to their lack of seriousness about learning.
Furthermore, she said, video game use, especially Nintendo video games which “move too quickly,” give kids an insatiable taste for immediacy which is not conducive to students’ willingness to commit to the task of studying.
Some were dismissive about studies regarding lack of student literacy.
“It seems that way (that there is a college literacy problem) because I work with students with preparedness problems,” said Stephanie Hale, co-ordinator for the Student Success Lab.