Motivating Students to Read

This week's post was identified through a chat and the Chronicle article on "Are You Assigning Too Much Reading?" So, I would like to share this 2012 article entitled, "Why University Students Don 't Read: What Professors Can Do To Increase Compliance" by Hoef. The study objectives included:

(1) Determine the rate of reading compliance;

(2) Ascertain whether students who claimed to have read the assignment were able to demonstrate basic comprehension;

(3) List of why students did and did not read; and (4) Advice from noncompliant readers on what would motivate them to read.

The author found that 46% of students reported that they read, yet only 55% of those were able to demonstrate basic comprehension. The study found that early in the term, students cited concern over grades as the top factor motivating them to read; but by the end, concern about what their professor thought of them ranked highest. Finally, advice on how to encourage them to read more included providing quizzes, supplemental material, make the readings more interesting and frequent reminders.

If you are interested in motivating students to both read and with perhaps address higher order skills other than basic comprehension, here are a few research-based strategies:

1. Teach Metacognition

2. Graphic and Semantic Organizers

3. Generating Questions (Inquiry)

4. Recognizing Structures

5. Summarizing, Self-Talk, Paraphrasing

Hoeft, Mary E. (2012) "Why University Students Don't Read: What Professors Can Do To Increase Compliance," International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Vol. 6: No. 2, Article 12. Available at: https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2012.060212