Building Better Bridges: Understanding Academic Text Readiness at One Community College

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe multipronged study described in this manuscript was designed to determine the implicit definition of college-text ready at one community college. The impetus for this study is a need to fully understand what it means to be college-text ready based on the literacy demands, practices, and expectations in introductory-level (or entry-level) general-education courses. Only with this deeper understanding of college-text readiness can college reading professionals begin to design effective literacy interventions to help students who may not be considered college-text ready. Thus, another major goal of this study is to provide information on whether, how, and to what extent, current developmental reading courses are adequately preparing students for the reading expectations of the introductory-level courses that follow. Three component investigations were conducted: one on the text practices and expectations as observed, one on the faculty perspectives, and one on the student perspectives. Data sources included text analyses, classroom observations, faculty surveys and focus groups, and student surveys and focus groups. Findings included a mismatch between developmental reading and general-education courses in terms of the text types and difficulty levels, the purpose for the text, and the text-associated tasks and learning foci. Another major finding was that general-education faculty in this study do not provide explicit instruction on text-navigation. Instead faculty tend to use text-alternatives to deliver content. Finally, in response to the original driving question, the findings of this study suggested that there is not any widely accepted definition of college-text ready at this institution.