English literature: How do college students prepare for class?

English: The aim of this study is to describe and analyze how first year college students studying English literature in Norway prepare for class discussions/work. English literature I class is offered in the Foundation Program which is designed to give a comprehensive introduction to English students pursuing a Bachelor’s degree, and to students who wish to study a single subject at this level (Innlandet, 2017/2018). The study focuses on their preferred reading strategies. The participants have fulfilled a minimum of one year high school English upon entrance to this college level class. The sample consisted of 38 participants. The participants received a set of questionnaires, one at the outset and one at conclusion of the fall term. Questionnaire 1 asked about demographic information, reading experience, intentions for study (specific toward reading and group work), expectations, as well as study habits. Questionnaire 2 contained follow up questions from Questionnaire 1 specific to The Road and One Out of Many, as well as expectations toward group work and their professors. There were two separate observation periods and interview of three subjects from the same group to explore in greater depth their answers about study habits and expectations for learning English, their professors and group work. Finding the correct answer to the understanding and meaning of a text revealed itself a primary focus for the participants. The level of difficulty was associated with texts from an earlier era as well as texts involving other cultures where the language contained unfamiliar configurations of names, places and living situations. The participants expected to find understanding and meaning first through reading, thereafter class discussions, questions from their professors and outside online sources, as well as film. The reading strategies the participants reported using include close reading, skimming and note taking. Online sources that include You Tube, Schmoop and SparkNotes amongst others are strategies that participants used. The last mentioned are not traditional strategies and I found little research on them; however, they appear to be an important addition to text comprehension. Even though this study is not large enough to give evidence of any type of trend in the learning strategies of English Literature students, it does give insight into one class. The trend in this class is toward gaining understanding and meaning in a text by using online resources. Further research would be beneficial in order to develop teaching strategies to prepare students for these using these online sources in addition to the traditional strategies for gaining meaning through reading