Learning Aloud

It is time for new students to report to campus. An interesting controversy has developed over the issue of which students go where. Should institutions use the ACT or SAT to determine which students are allowed to attend. Some institutions have decided to drop these tests proposing that this move allows greater equity of access. The true motives of these institutions have been called into question.

I spent a good part of my academic career instructing and researching the study performance of beginning students. Let me say from personal experience and from the data I collected that allowing poorly prepared students into a college unsuited to their needs is not doing anyone a favor.

As a researcher, I did not use SAT or ACT data in my work. I primarily made use of a measure of reading skill. My course of interest was the Introduction to Psychology. I taught large groups of students and a major part of the student’s grade was based on several multiple-choice question exams based on student understanding and application of lecture and textbook content. My interest as a researcher was in study behavior and I made heavy use of an online study activities allowing me to operationalize how well, when, and how much students studied textbook content. My interest was in evaluating how such variables were related to examination performance.

As one would expect, reading comprehension skill was strongly correlated to examination performance. Without going further, in the large course environment in which I worked, I would suggest that poorly prepared students are going to struggle and allowing admission as an equity commitment may simply set certain students up for failure.

My research goes further to address related issues. I will say that my main research interest was to see if I could create online technology tools to assist poor readers in identifying specific areas of failed understanding to improve self-remediation. The biggest problem in publishing my research over the years was this. I continually ran into a problem that would call into question any effort I might make to evaluate the value of my intervention strategy. The problem was that more effective readers made greater use of the study tool than the poorer readers. This alone is a very interesting finding, but not of great value if what you want to do is develop cost-effective ways to assist poorly prepared students. Use of my study technique was predictive of higher examination performance, but use of my technique was also predicted by being a better student.

I am not defending the use of textbooks, multiple choice examinations, or large classes for the least experienced college students. Each of these issues would warrant a much longer analysis. Whatever one thinks of any of these issues, one important reality is that the commitment to each of these tactics is partly determined by the cost of higher education. I would have loved to work with groups of 25 intro students, but large state institutions cannot make this approach work on the tuition students are willing to pay.

So, having struggled with this situation for many years and having spent countless hours attempting to develop interventions that I felt would partly respond to the cost issue, I must say that  increasing the range of aptitude, background knowledge, motivation, etc. of students at the beginning level is not a strategy that will be successful without major interventions that are likely to be expensive. I would include as a short list – smaller classes and much more personal contact.

I have been reading several books proposing various individual differences that should be addressed in instruction. I have long supported the use of technology to address differences in speed of learning, but the notion of learning styles or intelligences makes little sense (and has little empirical support).

The multiple intelligences proposed by Gardner make a good example. Robert Sternberg had a simpler system and made more progress in operationalizing the three intelligences he proposed and determining whether these intelligences demonstrated trait by treatment interactions in achievement. However, the books I read seem to focus on Gardner. I think the notion of individual differences in social, musical and motor skills resonates with readers. They understand that others can sing and they can’t or that others are better athletes or dancers.

The issue is really what differences in skill areas have to do with achievement in other areas. Since research success has little to do with whether or not individuals have a role to play in education, I will ignore the lack of empirical support and try to make my point in another way.

The common argument is that education typically focused on a certain kind of thinking – one or at most a couple of the intelligences. I would propose that these in the Gardner system are verbal and logical. I am ignoring art, music, and physical education for the moment, but I will get back to these areas. I will accept this position. Reading, writing, math, physics, chemistry, etc., do emphasize and involve linguistic and analytical skills. The question I would ask for those concerned about this focus is “Do we want to help learners develop linguistic and analytical skills or do we assume they should learn to compensate for lack of these skills?” While compensation may always be possible (I may be able to use my social skills to convince a colleague to write a paper for me because my linguistic skills are not at her level?), should developing coping mechanisms really be the goal?

We tend to make this argument commenting on linguistic and analytical skills, but what if we focus on some of the other competencies (I cannot use the term intelligences). I did say I would return to discuss other areas of talent schools address. Should I tell the football coach I would rather he focus on analytical skill because my son does not have the coordination to catch a pass or the endurance to run a lap around the field? What expectations should I have of the choral director? Isn’t the idea to develop whatever level of motor or musical skill can be developed. You might hope the football coach would not ignore social competence as team cohesiveness is a major component of team success, but in the final analysis, the goal is really to develop motor skills.  

If the idea in addressing styles or intelligences is assuming that some trait by treatment interaction exists, I just have a hard team imagining how that would work for any given intelligence one might designate.