Students lack complex literacy skills, Pew study finds

MEREDITH RODRIGUEZ
Assistant Living Editor

A quick peruse through the Seaver Academic Catalog takes a reader through a tour of fascinating classes: Keyboard Harmony, Analytic Geometry and Calculus II, Criminology and for the especially abstract-minded, Ancient Philosophy. These courses and their counterparts will undoubtedly catapult a Seaver graduate ahead of the rest. Or will they?

A literacy study funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts discovered that more than half of the students at four-year colleges and at least 75 percent at two-year colleges lack the literacy to handle complex and challenging literacy activites. Some categories tested included identifying a specific portions on a map, calculating the cost of ordering specific office supplies from a catalog, and consulting reference materials to determine which foods contain a particular vitamin.

Many Pepperdine Professors do not find these results startling.

Dr. Douglas Mulford, assistant professor of chemistry, said that he has found that most people in his G.E. science courses and freshman seminar come in clueless, which he attributes to the lack of problem-solving skills emphasized in high school standardized tests.

“With the S.A.T’s – that’s not what’s emphasized,” he said. “The people coming in have no skills.”

While courses like the G.E. natural science class can teach such skills, the fact that basic skills need to be taught, slows the learning process.

“Those basic skills are not something we should be teaching at the college level,” Mulford said. “We could just be going further if they had those tools (beforehand).”

Out of the four levels identified in the study, “Below Basic”, “Basic”, “Intermediate” and “Proficient,” most students showed “Intermediate” skills. Considering that the majority is missing the “Proficient” skills-mark, unable to complete tasks such as comparing two newspaper editorial viewpoints, interpreting a table about blood pressure, age and physical activity and computing and comparing the cost per ounce of food items, there remains a fear that students, even the Pepperdine student, will fall behind.

As far as understanding the more complex tasks such as how to interpret a table for exercise and blood pressure Senior Matthew Williams said, “I’m not at the point in my life when I have to care.”

Mulford suspected that students will be at a disadvantage, however, if they don’t learn such skills by the time they graduate.

“In questions of health and blood pressure it is important to be able to interpret what it exactly means for you,” he said.

Students scored lowest in quantitative literacy portions, involving math skills needed for tasks such as balancing a checkbook or calculating appropriate restaurant tips.

At four-year universities like Pepperdine, 20 percent have only “Basic” quantitative literacy skills, which means that they are unable to estimate such problems as whether or not their car has enough gasoline to get to the next gas station.

Senior Matthew Williams said he is not surprised that college students don’t know how to perform such basic skills because they aren’t personally responsible yet.

“Until you’re personally responsible, there is no real vested interest,” Williams said. “If you’re making your own cash, for example, then you’re gonna know how to manage your money, but if you use a credit card and your parents, then you don’t.”

Senior Jenna Van Weelden agreed.

“If you don’t have to (care) and someone takes care of the stuff for you then why would you?” she asked.

For example, VanWeelden owns a Denali 2001, which tells her how many miles she has to go before reaching a gas station. While she feels proficient in most areas, VanWeelden’s attitude that of many students: “Math is something I avoid if I can,” she said.

Even students can attest to the average college student’s lack of proficiency. However, study results did not only include bad news.

The average literacy of students graduating from two and four year colleges is significantly higher than the average literacy of adults in the nation and their quantitative skills are at an equal level as previous generations of college graduates.

Further, the study found that students have higher prose and document literacy than previous graduates with similar levels of education. Prose literacy involves analyzing news stories and other prose, while document literacy involves understanding documents and charts.

Williams can attest to this statistic. As a business major with a math minor, he said a lot of his friends are better at writing and expressing what they feel on paper than he is.

VanWeelden added that most of the basic life-skills she knows, such as managing credit-card interest or balancing a checkbook, she learned from her parents.

Both agreed, however, that it might be good to add basic-skills into more classes.

Seaver does offer a personal finance class for non-business majors. The class covers such practical skills as how to value interest charged to credit cards, according to the class’ professor, Dr. Anthony Culpeper.

“I think it’s a valuable class,” Culpepper said. “The objective is to give students life-skills in these areas.”

Dr . Mulford concluded by emphasizing the importance of learning the more complex tasks.

“The popular mass media not always good at it, so people need to be able to make intelligent decisions for themselves,” he said.

The study was based on a sample of 1,827 graduating students from eight randomly selected two-year and four-year public and private colleges and Univerisities across the United States. The study targeted students in all fields of study nearing the end of their degree programs.

Many Pepperdine Professors do not find these results startling.

Dr. Mulford said that he has found that most people in his G.E. science courses and freshman seminar come into clueless, which he attributes to the lack of problem-solving skills emphasized in High School standardized tests.

“With the S.A.T’s – that’s not what’s emphasized,” he said. “The people coming in have no skills.”

While courses like the G.E. natural science class can teach such skills, the fact that basic skills need to be taught, slows the learning process.

“Those basic skills are not something we should be teaching at the college level,” Mulford said. “We could just be going further if they had those tools (beforehand).”

Out of the four levels, “Below Basic”, “Basic”, “Intermediate” and “Proficient,” most students showed “Intermediate” skills. Considering that the majority is missing the “Proficient” skills-mark, unable to complete tasks such as comparing two newspaper editorial viewpoints, interpreting a table about blood pressure, age and physical activity and computing and comparing the cost per ounce of food items, there remains a fear that students, even the Pepperdine student, will fall behind.

As far as understanding the more complex tasks such as how to interpret a table for exercise and blood pressure Williams said, “I’m not at the point in my life when I have to care.”

Dr. Mulford suspected that students will be at a disadvantage, however, if they don’t learn such skills by the time they graduate.

“In questions of health blood pressure It is important to be able to interpret what does that mean and find out what it exactly means for you,” he said.