College English majors can't read \ stacker news ~Education

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College English majors can't read kittenbeloved.substack.com/p/college-english-majors-cant-read

335 sats \ 10 comments \ @k00b 22 May Education

This is the subject of a recently released study making waves in the education world. Researchers decided to sit with current college English majors and see how much they understood of what they read. They chose a very challenging text for the modern student, Bleak House by Dickens. Specifically, the first seven paragraphs

To summarize even further for those skimming:

58% of students understood very little of the passages they read

38% could understand about half of the sentences

5% could understand all seven paragraphs

These are college students majoring in English. About half of them are English Education majors, which means they will be teaching books like Bleak House to high school students after graduating. But they themselves cannot understand the literal meaning of the sentences in the opening paragraphs.

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410 sats \ 5 replies \ @SimpleStacker 22 May

Many problems with this study.

The passage chosen is written in an almost deliberately obtuse style, with improper English grammar (flow of thought style), and a geographical/social context with proper nouns that students would be unfamiliar with.
The sample size is only 85, and not a random sample of English majors across the country.
Rather, the sample was taken from two low-tier regional universities in Kansas. Moreover, the selected students had ACT scores indicating low to mid proficiency in English. They were somehow recruited into the study, but it wasn't clear how it was ensured that the recruited sample is actually representative of all English majors at these two universities.
My guess, therefore, is that these students are below the average level of English proficiency for all English majors across the country.
Even so, I'd venture to guess that if you tried this test on a bunch of college professors (not necessarily english profs), that many of them would struggle to read the passage as well.

Even though I agree with the premise that college standards in America are declining, I don't think this article is strong evidence demonstrating that.

I might have a bigger problem with academics pushing shoddy research than English majors who can't read Charles Dickens.

62 sats \ 1 reply \ @elvismercury 22 May

Come on man - these are English majors reading one of the canonical works of a foundational English author.

Any student of anything will encounter foreign vocabulary requiring sensible strategies to infer from context - or else the ability to look shit up, as well as the ability to know you should look it up, when instructed that that is a move one can make.

The meta-cognition (or lack of it) revealed here is remarkable.

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 22 May

Eh, I find the lack of objectivity in sample selection and the subjectivity in response categorization in the research study equally remarkable.

The journal which this study was published in has an impact factor of 0.05 which is very very low. I'm not normally one to tout credentials, but as it stands the credential of the journal is consistent with the lack of quality of the research. This seems like the kind of journal that could easily get targeted by Sokal hoaxes.

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @kepford 22 May

These were some of my thoughts as well. I would say Bryan Caplan's book is enough of an indictment on so called public education.

7 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 22 May

And also his indictment of college education public and private

30 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 22 May

It would be interesting for someone to conduct this study without seemingly putting their thumb on the scale. My guess is they'd come to qualitatively similar conclusions.

My recollection, from when I was more involved in education, is that ed majors are pretty universally the lowest aptitude, whether it's at Podunk U or an Ivy.

60 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury 22 May

Ha, I was gonna share this too. I'm trying to figure out how much of my interest is schadenfreude at dunking on the kids. But it checks out w my experience.

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @Satosora 22 May

I just saw something on this. A student had been accepted into Connecticut university. She couldnt read or write. I was simply amazed that she couldnt do the most basic skills of a student, yet was accepted into their program.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 22 May

Diversity

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 22 May

Any reader of "The Case Against Education - Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money" by Bryan Caplan is not surprised by this in the least.