Key Study Findings

As noted in the abstract, one of the key findings of this 2005 research study is that a majority of respondents were either unfamiliar with, or simply do not use the 10 advanced college-level reading strategies (“Advanced CRS”) compared to their much greater use of the more common K-12 reading strategies.

More specifically, in regard to these 10 Advanced CRS (not including any of the commonly-used CRS), the Beginning-of-Semester survey (N = 691 respondents) results show that at the beginning of the semester, the greatest amount of student use of one of these strategies was only 34.9% (241 of 691 students). Significantly, the lowest percentage was only 9.6% (66 of 691 students) for students who used the last Advanced CRS strategy (symptomatic reading and analysis of texts). By the end of the Spring 2005 semester, however, 94.2% (503 of 534 students) stated that the Advanced CRS strategies had indeed helped them become better, more proficient writers. This study finding is one of the major reasons why Ms. Diessner and her colleagues strongly believe that other college-bound students will similarly benefit from this important instruction.

Lastly, a logical study inference is that although the commonly used K-12 reading strategies work very well with high school-level texts, those same strategies are not nearly as effective for the much more difficult college-level texts. Matching the college-level reading strategies to the college-level texts will ultimately give students the edge they need in dealing with these more difficult college texts!