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“Reading Is Important,” but “I Don't Read”: Undergraduates’ Experiences With Academic Reading
Author(s) -
Gorzycki Meg,
Desa Geoffrey,
Howard Pamela J.,
Allen Diane D.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of adolescent and adult literacy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.73
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1936-2706
pISSN - 1081-3004
DOI - 10.1002/jaal.1020
Subject(s) - reading (process) , discipline , psychology , mathematics education , qualitative research , pedagogy , sociology , linguistics , social science , philosophy
Qualitative data analysis from open‐ended comments written by 206 undergraduates illustrates student attitudes, beliefs, and practices that reveal an academic reading paradox. Consistently, undergraduates report that reading is valuable, yet their noncompliance with reading assignments suggests otherwise. Undergraduates report that they achieve their academic goals with little reading and that they perceive reading as too voluminous and irrelevant to class outcomes. The data highlight a misalignment between conventional academic expectations that undergraduates will read in scholarly ways and their actual academic reading practice. Qualitative analysis illustrates that students do not experience academic reading as a venue for scholarly engagement in disciplinary discourse. Whereas the academic reading literature proposes that students develop along a continuum from novice to expert reader, findings suggest that the undergraduate experience of academic reading is not representative of that continuum.