Critical Reading: What Do Students Actually Do?

ABSTRACT The goal of the present investigation is to determine how undergraduate students think about critical reading. We asked 249 students to rate the usefulness of several critical reading skills, how often those skills are taught, and whether they practice those skills when working on their assignments. We found that students consider more complex reading skills (e.g., Applying) as more useful than simpler reading skills (e.g., Skimming). Moreover, complex skills were taught more often in their classes. However, students report practicing Skimming more often than Applying. These findings indicate that knowing what is most useful for learning does not translate into actually practicing those skills when working on assignments. Educators need to help students transition from knowing what they need to do to actually doing it.