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.
W
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