The Reading Habits Among Uniersity Students.................................................................By Bee Hwa

What are the reading habits of Malaysian students at the university? Will efficient readers achieve higher levels of academic achievement? How do our students perceive their reading ability?

When colleagues of the English interview prospective students for the B.A. in English Language and Literature Studies (ELLS) programme, the colleagues always seem to ask about their reading habits. The colleagues constantly probe into the fabric of interweaving factors of their reading dimension hoping that they will elaborate on their favourite books and authors and comment on their leisure reading interests. During the interviews, the colleagues discovered that many of the students read very little and seem uncomfortable when asked about their reading interests, citing the usual reasons of the lack of time and access to reading materials to account for the little time spent on this activity.

How much do Malaysians read? According to the last National Literacy Survey carried out in 1996 by the National Library, the average Malaysian reads only two books a year! This is an improvement compared to an earlier survey in 1982 which revealed that an average Malaysian read a mere page or two a year. The Sunday Star newspaper reports that "the poor reading habits among Malaysians was common knowledge but, in true Malaysian fashion, it took an official survey to jolt the education sector that something had to be done fast." When the survey findings hit the headlines, the Education Ministry came up with the NILAM programme in 1998 to nurture the reading habit among school children. In this reading project, students are awarded marks for the number of books they read and the Education Ministry has suggested an award ranking system for primary and secondary schools. However, many schools have yet to start the programme and those that have are still in the infancy stage. Various reasons for setbacks in the implementation of this reading programme have been cited, among which include the recent economic downturn making a national launch impossible. Many teachers have also expressed confusion about the concept and are unsure about implementing it in their schools.

Studies in the past have shown that the exam-oriented educational system in Malaysia promotes rote learning and that there needs to be a paradigm shift in how we view education and about the way we teach. The Education Minster, Datuk Najib Tun Razak, has frequently commented in the local media that most students read only to pass exams and do not read for pleasure. He has been instrumental in implementing many projects aimed at improving students’ reading ability in the country. Reading skills are important through out our lifespan, particularly as we respond to new demands and changes in jobs and reading for pleasure or recreational has been found to improve reading comprehension, writing style, vocabulary, spelling and grammatical development. The positive and rewarding effects of recreational reading have been demonstrated in numerous studies.

Over the past over the past twenty years, increasing numbers of Malaysians have enrolled in institutions of higher learning in the country. Admission decisions are usually made on the basis of the applicants’ academic performance in standardised national exams like the ‘A’ levels or the STPM. Hence, identifying the reading habits of university students will have tremendous significance on the local universities and for the students themselves. Most attempts to predict the academic performance of local university students have not focused on the students’ reading habits. As Stoynoff notes,"academic success is likely a multidimensional phenomenon that includes language proficiency, learning and study strategies, and certain personal characteristics." The intent of the present study is to investigate the students’ reading habits and their perceptions of their reading ability. We have defined reading habits as regular tendencies in reading behaviour.