FOSTERING READING AT THE SPANISH UNIVERSITY: SOME PRELIMINARY RESULTS ON VOLUNTARY BOOK READINGS IN A PUBLIC ECONOMICS COURSE

This paper presents the preliminary results obtained in a pilot teaching experience carried out during two consecutive courses in a Public Economics course taught in a B.A. in Law. As recent surveys have alerted about the low proportion of Spanish college students who read books on a regular basis, this teaching experience aimed to explore channels of fostering reading among students and unfolded in several steps. Firstly, the teacher presented an open list of books to students, commented on them and strongly encourage students to read any of the titles or to propose any alternative book. The range of titles proposed was very wide, explicitly excluding handbooks and not limited to books strictly linked to Public Economics, but including writings on Modern History, History of Economic Thought, novels with some economic content and, in general, books on the popularization of Social Sciences. Secondly, on a voluntary basis, those interest students could declare the book to be read through the Moodle platform used at the University. Thirdly, before the end of the term, students were divided in groups of three by the teacher depending on their readings; the teacher met each group for a brief seminar where they discussed on the main points of the book and have the opportunity of setting out their doubts and inquiries about the content of the reading. Those people who demonstrated to have carefully read the chosen book were rewarded with up to 5% of the maximum final mark. The experience was a success in terms of participation among usual class attendants (more than 70% of them reading one or more books), with most students not choosing a book on the basis of its length. An ad-hoc anonymous survey performed by the teacher confirmed the good acceptance of this initiative among college students. The paper presents in detail this pilot experience, discusses its main advantages and limitations of it and offers some guidelines for future improvements.