2008 - Marketing Educators' Association

One: What are the actual reading-related skills,
habits and attitudes of current and potential
marketing students?
We need a clear assessment of our students to
establish where to begin and to create a baseline to
measure our progress. Perhaps we can glean a
basic understanding of the skills and habits of
marketing students by considering data on college
students in general. Approximately 10 percent of
entering college students require remedial reading
training necessary to complete college coursework
(Caverly, Nicholson, & Radcliffe, 2004). In addition,
a large percentage of students enrolled in both two-
and four-year programs are considered deficient
readers. For example, according to the National
Center for Educational Statistics (2005) an
estimated 75 percent of college students enrolled in
two-year schools and 50 percent in four-year
schools are not proficient readers (unable to
decipher and understand complex text). Finally, it
does not appear that a college education guarantees
a graduate will leave with the necessary reading
skills; only 31 percent of college graduates were
rated as proficient readers in 2003 (National Center
for Educational Statistics, 2005).
There also appears to be a change in attitudes
toward reading by college-age adults. For example,
young adults tend to be more "aliterate" as opposed
to being illiterate: they can read but neither value
reading books nor choose to read printed materials
unless required (Weeks, 2001). The NEA (2007)
reports that young adults spend less time reading
than any other segment of the population. Industry
research by book sellers suggests that young adults
do not hold the same "reverence" as previous
generations for books or their authors. Traditional
outlets for reading materials are also viewed
differently by young adults. For example, coffee
shops in bookstores were rated as the second most
popular place to meet a blind date (restaurants were
first) for young adults (Publishers Weekly, 2006).
Many of the general observations made of young
adults as a whole also appear to apply to marketing
students. For example, in research conducted by the
author, 300 college students enrolled in marketing
courses were asked where they were most likely to
locate material to read and 95 percent reported they
were highly unlikely to use the campus library. Also,
in-depth interviews with college marketing students
revealed that most only read materials assigned for
courses, and even then they admitted they did not
read to comprehend the authors' ideas, but only
scanned the material long enough to use their short-
142
term memories to defeat the multiple-choice
questions used in quizzes and exams.
While a general understanding of the larger college
student population is beneficial, it may be
inappropriate to apply general student traits to
marketing students. It has long been speculated that
business college students who lack adequate
quantitative skills tend to gravitate to majors like
marketing, advertising, and public relations where
these skills are less emphasized. If this is accurate,
then do these students also tend to lack reading
skills? College entrance exams like the ACT and
SAT suggest this may in fact be the case; students
with higher math scores also tend to have higher
verbal scores (NEA, 2007). The author is not
suggesting that all marketing students pursue
marketing careers to avoid their personal
shortcomings, but marketing educators need to be
sure their students graduate with all the appropriate
skills necessary to excel in the workforce. Hence,
there is a need to study the specific reading skills,
habits and attitudes of marketing students.
What reading skills, behaviors and attitudes do
marketing students actually possess prior to
being admitted to upper-division coursework,
and how do these skills compare to the general
student population and to other business
majors?
How much reading is actually done (for
entertainment, learning, etc.), and what
promotes or prevents proficient reading skills
and positive reading habits for marketing
students?
Two: What are the current reading skills,
behaviors, and attitudes of proficient marketing
professionals and what are the expectations of
their employers?
We need to clearly understand how to best serve
our students and their future employers. To minimize
disagreement over what it means to be a "proficient
reader," marketing educators need to focus first on
the reading skills and habits professionals use at
work – where approximately 40 percent of all adult
reading takes place (Smith, 1998). This approach
places reading's utilitarian benefits of gathering
information for better work-related decisions above
the aesthetics of leisure reading used largely for
entertainment and mental stimulation. Clearly,
leisure reading benefits students, but as marketing
educators we are uniquely qualified to prepare our
graduates for tasks that await them within their
professions. In support of the utilitarian approach,
the National Center for Educational Statistics (2007)
estimates that 90 percent of business professionals