Reading strategies and student comprehension in an Internet ethics course

Our students´ reading comprehension skills underpin their ability to learn the concepts and competencies in computer science. However, there has been little attention given to evaluating how well our students comprehend what they read and the effectiveness of strategies to improve their reading comprehension. In this paper we focus on the case of a non-major course on internet ethics and the reading of the original writings of key figures in ethical theory. Due to the observed weakness of the reading comprehension skills of the students, we have been teaching our students strategies to improve their skills in reading comprehension and meta-comprehension within the framework of an in-class group reading. The reading strategies we have been using are described, evaluated, and placed in the context of the reading comprehension literature. Increased awareness of the limitations of the reading comprehension skills of our students and of ways to teach the students strategies to improve those skills should prove useful in helping instructors ensure that our students have the foundation they need to be successful in their computer science studies.