2008 - Marketing Educators' Association

have proficient reading skills, and there is a positive
correlation between higher life-time earnings and
greater reading proficiency (NEA, 2007).
An abridged summation of adult reading research
suggests that working adults who are highly
proficient readers – higher comprehension, larger
vocabularies, and faster reading speeds – can better
regulate their cognitive, emotive and behavioral
responses when reading. For example, Smith (1998)
conducted extensive observational research on 159
adults and concluded that proficient adult readers
knew how information from reading fit into their
existing knowledge base (cognitive), maintained a
positive attitude towards reading (affect), and used
different reading strategies to achieve desired ends
(behavioral). In support of Smith's conclusions, an
analysis of the existing research on adult reading
behavior by the author suggests that proficient
readers in work environments share four characteristics:
(1) they read to achieve a predetermined goal;
(2) they self-regulate their cognitive processing and
motivation; (3) they actively monitor their ability to
comprehend what they read; and, (4) they use
different reading strategies and techniques to fit their
explicit goals and the complexity of the materials in
use.
As helpful as it is to have a general understanding of
workplace reading behaviors, we do not know the
specific reading skills or habits of modern marketing
professionals. In fact, what it actually means to be a
"proficient" reader in the modern digital world may
be different than traditional ways of thinking about
effective reading. For instance, "information literacy"
– the ability to manage, search and locate
information in large data bases and collections of
texts – is a relatively new and highly desirable skill
for professionals. Yet we do not know how
information-literate marketing professionals are.
Hence, we need research that explores how modern
marketing professionals manage the vast amount of
print mediums available to them, and how they use
reading to remain informed and to self direct their
learning.
Employers and recruiters have a stake in how well
their future employees are prepared, and they
expect college graduates to have mastered basic
reading skills. In a study conducted by the
Conference Board to determine how prepared
college graduates are to join the U.S. workforce, 87
percent of business representatives surveyed
reported it was very important that first-time job
holders have sufficient reading comprehension to
understand job-related materials (Casner-Lotto &
Barrington, 2006).
143
Students also have a vested interest in acquiring the
skills necessary to succeed as marketing
professionals, but do students even know what
reading skills they need for their careers, and do
they know that most students are considered to be
deficient readers by industry standards? Apparently,
not all do. In a study conducted by the author, both
students with strong and weak reading skills
reported those skills were sufficient for them to
succeed in their future professions. Hence, we need
to study the actual reading behaviors of marketing
practitioners to answer a number of questions:
• What are the actual reading demands placed on
modern marketing professionals? For example,
what drives which material is read and how it is
used? How much time and effort is devoted to
work-related reading and why?
• What are the "best practices" applied in the field
by marketing professionals to manage the
avalanche of industry information published
online and in traditional mediums (nonfiction
books, industry journals, etc.)?
• How aware are marketing students of the
reading skills expected of them by future
employers, and do they have an accurate
assessment of their existing reading proficiency?
Three: What pedagogical methods are most
likely to achieve the objectives of marketing
educators?
We need a set of reliable methods to move
marketing students who lack the necessary reading
skills to a minimum proficiency level. Reading
specialists appear to disagree on which methods are
most effective. For practitioners, speed reading
techniques like those promoted by Evelyn Wood in
the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s have fallen out of favor
because while reading speed can be increased it
often comes at the expense of comprehension.
Without a high level of discipline and continual
practice, reading speeds typically revert to their
original levels. Furthermore, highly proficient readers
vary their reading speeds depending on their
objectives and the material.
In educational settings, various self-regulation
reading methods have been used by instructors to
improve students’ reading comprehension. The most
well-known self-regulation method is the SQ3R
(survey, question, read, recall, and review)
developed by Robinson in 1946 (Williams, 2005).
Self-regulation methods are popular because they
give students a quick and easy-to-follow set of steps
on how they should read textbooks. College reading
instructors who use this approach often feel they are
empowering students to take control of their reading