Student’s Engagement with Assignment Readings: While in Binghamton University’s 4-Week Bride Program
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Issue Date
2015-04-10
Authors
Simmons, Elijah
Publisher
Keywords
Elijah Simmons , Binghamton
Abstract
Students are not reading enough: students must engage with their assigned readings. The research is a combination of Literacy and Education Studies. The goal of the research was to find more efficient ways for Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) students to engage with assigned readings. For one to engage with an assigned reading, one must make a connection to either text to self, text to text and/or text to world. EOP students are defined as first generation, low income and/or underrepresented minorities. The hypothesis of the research was that EOP students only engage with assigned readings when the topic of the assigned reading is interesting to the student, opposed to when they have to read for a learning value. The methods used in the research were interviews and in-class observation. The students in the interview process were all volunteers. The interview process included two interviews; the first interview was in the first week of the students’ 4-week Writing 111 Course. Students were asked what their reading their habits and reading histories, as well as what their ideas were of what it meant to engage with assigned readings. The second interview was an exit interview, which took place at the end of the 4-week Writing 111 course. In the exit interview the students were asked what new methods for engagement did they learned from their Writing 111 Course. Also, the students were asked again what it meant to engage with assigned readings. The other element of the methodology was the in-class observation. During my in-class observation I observed how students reacted to different pieces from their syllabus and how they verbally engaged with assigned readings. The findings of the research were 1) Media needs to be adopted in Classrooms 2) Multitasking is the future 3) Personal history is key in the development of study habits. The implications of this research will allow professors and educators to improve their student’s engagement with assigned readings within a class period, which will hopefully make students read more.