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Come on man - these are English majors reading one of the canonical works of a foundational English author.
Any student of anything will encounter foreign vocabulary requiring sensible strategies to infer from context - or else the ability to look shit up, as well as the ability to know you should look it up, when instructed that that is a move one can make.
The meta-cognition (or lack of it) revealed here is remarkable.
Eh, I find the lack of objectivity in sample selection and the subjectivity in response categorization in the research study equally remarkable.
The journal which this study was published in has an impact factor of 0.05 which is very very low. I'm not normally one to tout credentials, but as it stands the credential of the journal is consistent with the lack of quality of the research. This seems like the kind of journal that could easily get targeted by Sokal hoaxes.
It would be interesting for someone to conduct this study without seemingly putting their thumb on the scale. My guess is they'd come to qualitatively similar conclusions.
My recollection, from when I was more involved in education, is that ed majors are pretty universally the lowest aptitude, whether it's at Podunk U or an Ivy.
These were some of my thoughts as well. I would say Bryan Caplan's book is enough of an indictment on so called public education.
And also his indictment of college education public and private
Many problems with this study.
Even though I agree with the premise that college standards in America are declining, I don't think this article is strong evidence demonstrating that.
I might have a bigger problem with academics pushing shoddy research than English majors who can't read Charles Dickens.