Resistance to Reading Compliance among College Students: Instructors' Perspectives

The purpose of this article is to provide information regarding why college students are not inclined to read, why college instructors are not motivated to reinforce student reading, and what type of actions can be taken by instructors to increase student reading compliance of journal articles. Low student self-confidence, disinterest in the research topic and subject matter, and underestimating the significance of completing the required reading are the main reasons students are resistant to comply with the assigned reading. Whereas, fear of poor student evaluations of instructors, the developmental level of students, the motivational levels of students and instructors, as well as the expectations and beliefs of instructors are the main reasons college instructors fail to repeatedly promote and assess student reading. Some suggestions are made to instructors in an effort to overcome both the obstacles presented by students and the challenges instructors face when dealing with reading compliance at the college level. These suggestions include administering pop or announced quizzes, increasing class work and homework assignments, promoting reading research journal articles, and incorporating participation points or extra credit points during class discussion times. Introduction Reading has always been an important part of the learning process in college classrooms. Students who read assigned research articles from scholarly journals not only perform better on exams, but they also participate more in classroom discussions and have a better understanding of in-class lecture (Wandersee, 1988; Sappington, et al., 2002). However, the amount of student reading has been steadily declining for the past several decades (Burchfield and Sappington, 2000; Sappington, et al., 2002). College instructors are finding that non-compliance with required readings is causing a major break down in class discussions, participation (Sappington et al., 2002), as well as exam and research performance. This article summarize important findings from previously published literature regarding reasons for non-compliance with reading assignments, including reasons why students do not read often, why teachers do not enforce reading assignments, as well as possible solutions to this problem (Table 1). The educational implications of these findings are also discussed. Understanding the mechanisms that lead to the non-compliance of the required reading for a class by college students may lead to solutions that will greatly enhance the education of college students. Reasons Students Do Not Read Often So, why students do not read when there is such an apparent benefit to complete reading assignments? Several major factors are involved in this problem, including a lack of reading comprehension skills, lack of self-confidence, disinterest in the course material, and an underestimation of reading importance (Table 1). Reading comprehension may be involved in the decline in reading compliance (Ryan, 2006). This epidemic is not exclusive to college students. Murden and Gillespie (1997) have found that middle and high school students also underestimate the importance of reading articles from popular journals. Therefore, students do not gain the skill of reading journal articles when they are younger; as articles become more difficult to read and comprehend, they are unable to keep up (Murden and Gillespie, 1997). Large-scale reading assignments compound this problem. Students without reading comprehension skills may have a tendency to give up when they come across difficult vocabulary, concepts, along with tables and figures (Ryan, 2006). Student self-confidence is positively correlated with task completion (Tuckman, 1991). Although self-confidence plays a vital role in how well a child does in school from the very beginning, it becomes really evident at the college level where instructors are less likely to seek out students to help (Tuckman, 1991). …