I was looking through the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) this morning and came across an interesting trend. I only went through the years 2003 to 2006, so the time factor is short, but it nonetheless may signal an important development in the college classroom.
In one question, NSSE requests the “Number of books read on your own (not assigned) for personal enjoyment or academic enrichment,” and I’ve commented before on how dismayingly low the numbers are. For instance, in 2005, 24 percent of first-year students answered “None,” while 56 percent answered “1-4.” (You can get the breakdowns for recent years by typing “NSSE Grand Frequencies” into Google, and a pdf will be listed near the top.)
Some people have attributed the low leisure reading rates to the high reading kids have to do for class. This is to overlook, of course, the roughly 20 weeks most college students spend on vacation.
It is also to overlook another figure, a shift in the weight of in-class readings in recent years. In another question, NSSE requests the “Number of assigned textbooks, books, or book-length packs of course readings.”
In 2003, for first-year students, we got:
None 1%
1-4 15%
5-10 35%
11-20 32%
20+ 17%
In 2006, we got:
None 1%
1-4 20%
5-10 43%
11-20 25%
20+ 11%
Note how much the 1-4 group jumped and the 20+ group slid.
And now for seniors in 2003:
None 1%
1-4 23%
5-10 33%
11-20 26%
20+ 17%
And in 2006:
None 1%
1-4 26%
5-10 39%
11-20 21%
20+ 13%
The 1-4 group jumped three points, while the 20+ group fell four points. Book-length reading is going down.
This begs the question of whether the number of pages has actually dropped, and we need more data on whether teachers are adding shorter readings that make up for the loss of longer ones. Whatever the case, though, I think it marks an intellectual decline. A long book poses concentration and memory demands that shorter ones do not, and if they are not trained to manage long, slow reading requirements in school, they probably won’t develop them on their own.
