By: Brian Swanberg
With the fast-rising adoption of artificial intelligence into industries, the rising worldwide complications of climate change, and the quick adoption of new medicines, creating solutions is of the utmost importance. Developing “broad, transferable skills'' is becoming increasingly important for adaptation in the 21st century [1]. Underlying “transferable skills'' is the basis for students to learn how, when, and why to apply content to a different context. With a deeper understanding of these ideas, students are empowered to develop and adapt abstract ideas to solve new problems in an increasingly complex world. According to many researchers, high school graduates are unequipped with these concepts [o21; 3]. For example, according to the 2015’s National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), only 10% of US secondary students can engage in deep processing tasks on unfamiliar topics [2]. There have been decades of research on improving learning and reading outcomes that could help improve this number [2; 4]. Despite some adoption, many educational researchers, businesses, and policy-makers are calling for more teaching time spent on modern practices along with novel initiatives that help prepare students for this future [o2; 2].
Learning how to learn in a self-directed, independent manner has become highly relevant in developing “transferable skills.” One of the primary mediums to learn independently is through reading. Without reading, users likely need alternative mediums (audio, video, touch, in-person interactions) to learn new ideas. Generally, to learn new content, the student must understand or comprehend the content [o6]. In the case of reading, comprehension involves the coordination of (including but not limited to) “word reading ability, working memory, inference generation, comprehension monitoring, vocabulary, and prior knowledge” [2; o19]. These core literacy skills are challenging to develop.
Only 32% of 4-year first-year undergraduates have higher than a 12th-grade reading level [o18]. However, most college textbooks and research papers have a higher reading level than 12th grade [o3; o20]. This reading level gap can cause a user’s working memory to bypass their cognitive load, making a text hard to understand [6; 1]. Here, I define working memory as a cognitive system to try to process new information and cognitive load as the typical threshold of working memory that would keep the user from feeling overwhelmed.
Contributors to higher working memory than normal when a user tries to comprehend new text. Some symptoms and contributors were inferred based on past research (example: 6, o11, o24).
In the short term, when the user’s working memory exceeds their cognitive load, it will take more time to understand the content — even if the user handles the situation well. In many situations, over the long term, the user may exhibit symptoms similar to depression [o11]. The user may perform less effectively than usual, and the user may have lower confidence, ambition, self-esteem, and energy to perform, causing their stress to increase even more (o11; o24). The core conundrum is to find a way to help students not only read these challenging texts for their courses but also to develop strong study habits and reading comprehension levels that will help steer them away from these problematic psychological behaviors.
Symptoms of being consistently exposed to an overloaded working memory.
Personally, I saw these symptoms present at times with myself in my own education. I saw these symptoms in many of my classmates in high school and in college.
According to researchers, little time is spent teaching reading comprehension strategies in the US [2; o26], nor is significant time spent teaching study strategies [e.g., 5; o17]. How can we frame education to help solve the core conundrum?
In Part II, we will talk about one solution to help students: tutoring.
Note: sources are cited in the Further Reading article