University Affairs - January 2014

34 / www.universityaffairs.ca / January 2014

“Many students can write
to be understood but are
unable to move beyond
this functional level.”

À mon avis In my opinion

Literacy skills
You can’t prove what
you don’t measure

by Nicholas Dion and Vicky Maldonado

Nicholas Dion and Vicky Maldonado are researchers at the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario and authors of Making the Grade?

Troubling Trends in Postsecondary Student Literacy.

hile the benefits of strong literacy skills are well established, there is growing concern that Canadians’ reading and writing skills, including those of students attending postsecondary institutions in Ontario, are not meeting expectations. This is especially worrisome given that strong literacy skills are critical to students as they graduate into a highly competitive and increasingly globalized labour market.

The pressing question is whether students entering postsecondary education have the literacy skills required to succeed, and whether these skills are strengthened during a student’s time at university or college. Most institutions gather surprisingly little information about students’ language skills, either upon entry or at graduation. While most would agree that improved reading and writing skills are a key learning outcome of postsecondary education, you can’t prove what you don’t measure. The time has come, especially given the (largely successful) move toward mass higher education, to consider the rigorous and systematic assessment of students’ literacy skills as they enter and exit postsecondary education.

Currently, only international students who haven’t completed their high school education in English write language-skills assessments on entry at most institutions, the assumption being that if you study in English and you do well enough in high school to earn your diploma, your language skills are likely strong enough to succeed at university. Yet there are good reasons to question this assumption.

The OECD and Statistics Canada have been assessing Canadians’ literacy skills for the last 20 years, and their findings have been mixed. We know that students are more likely to attend university the higher their literacy scores at age 15, and that increased admission numbers bring students with a broad range of abilities. Without universal standards for curriculum and grading beyond the (relatively vague) guidelines set by the provinces, we also know that an “A” in English from High School B is not equivalent to an “A” in English from High School C.

So how is an institution to gauge a student’s
true abilities? It can’t. It makes the best decision
possible with the information available and
waits to see how things turn out.

Entrance testing would allow universities and colleges to set their own clear, transparent standards – for high schools, for students and for faculty – and to trust in their assessment. It can be an expensive solution; that’s part of the reason universities (with a few exceptions) eliminated mandatory testing in the 1970s and ’80s, in favour of voluntary assistance offered through institutional writing centres. But the availability of technologies such as online platforms, which weren’t available 30 years ago, can help make such an initiative more affordable.

We know that those who have completed
postsecondary education generally score highest
on the OECD’s assessments. But the picture
becomes a bit more complex when we break
down the numbers. The OECD ranks literacy
skills on a five-level scale, setting level 3 as the
minimum level required to complete high school
and function in the world. As a result, OECD
analyses usually present level 3 as a threshold
for quality literacy skills. We would argue that
this standard is too low to reflect the academic
achievements expected of university graduates
– those who go on to compete to become engi-
neers, scientists, researchers or public servants.

Many postsecondary students have mastered the basics and can write to be understood but are unable to move beyond this functional level. Prose remains inelegant and unsophisticated, document structure is rudimentary and is often limited to the “five-paragraph essay” taught in Ontario’s high schools, and critical thought may be lacking. Students can write, but not well enough to be counted among the “literacy elite,” OECD levels 4 and 5. And in the latest round of OECD literacy assessments, only 29 percent of Canadians with a university or college credential scored at levels 4 and 5.

Institutions of higher education do not exist simply to teach applied career skills or discipline-specific knowledge. They also strengthen basic skills, including reading and writing. But how well universities and colleges are succeeding at this is based on reputation and anecdote, and that won’t do when students can’t find jobs and governments want to cut budgets. And it won’t do when the country’s best institutions are competing against those around the world. This might all sound alarmist – we all know we’re doing fine, right? If so, let’s prove it. But you can’t prove what you don’t measure.