Posts published on March 5, 2009
What Is College Readiness??
There is no consensus on this term so confusion abounds when it is mentioned. On a recent NAEP panel we distinguished readiness from academic prepardness which means can be measured by some types of tests or assessments.
College readiness is an elusive and multi-faceted concept that has no standard definition. Consequently, there is confusion among terms like “college readiness”, “college culture”, “college preparedness”, etc. This blog will provide some arbitrary definitions based on my judgments from the most appropriate literature. The overall design starts with secondary school student readiness attributes and then moves to cultures in secondary schools that build readiness. It ends with analysis of measuring dimensions of readiness. My themes are how complex readiness is and how many dimensions need to come together in order to embody and help produce readiness.
David T. Conley has the broadest view of college readiness, so it is the best starting point (Conley, 2007- see www.epiconline.org paper on College readiness). He breaks readiness down to four integrated components:
- Habits of Mind – patterns of intellectual behavior that lead to the development of cognitive strategies and capabilities necessary for college work. Among these are: intellectual openness, inquisitiveness, analysis, reasoning, interpretation, precision and problem solving. Multiple choice tests cannot measure all these elements.
- Overarching Academic Skills – writing, research, English, math, science, social studies, world languages, etc. These include skills such as: evaluate source material, synthesize, access information from a variety of locations, and written argumentation.
- Academic Behavior – metacognition, mastery of study skills, time management, note taking, communication with teacher and advisers.
- Conceptual Skills and Awareness – this is sometimes called “college knowledge” and encompasses teamwork, communication with others, understanding of college admission/placement, college options, financial aid applications, testing, college cultures, and expectations of postsecondary education.
