Resumen de Assessing reading abilities of mechanical engineering college students: a prospecting study
A. Sucena, J. Falcáo Carneiro, F. Gomes de Almeida
Reading is a basic competence that students have to master to be successful. Despite this fact, recent studies show that there maybe a significant decline in the reading abilities of college students, one of the most educated segments of any population. This workis a prospecting study regarding the assessment of reading abilities of college students, namely in the context of Engineeringeducation. Based on an existing screening test for assessing reading difficulties of children and teenagers, this work presents theresults obtained by administrating that test to students at a top engineering institution in Portugal. An outcome of this study is thedetermination of a time range suitable for a massive, time limited, use of the previously mentioned test to assess college students,thus enabling a basic tool that will permit, in future works, to screen reading abilities in wider college populations. This work alsoshows evidence that ca. 20% of college students present a poor reading performance, revealing a strong need for monitoring collegestudents’ reading abilities along different generations.
