Reciprocal teaching goes to college: Effects for postsecondary students at risk for academic failure.

This study investigated the effects of a structured reading comprehension technique, reciprocal teaching, on postsecondary students at risk for academic failure. The sample comprised 50 at-risk students enrolled in a community college who participated in either the reciprocal teaching or cooperative learning condition. The reciprocal teaching group performed significantly better than the comparison group on reading comprehension and strategy acquisition. There were no differences on perception of study skills. In secondary analyses, poorer readers in the reciprocal teaching condition benefited differentially, outperforming poorer readers in the comparison condition on both reading comprehension and strategy acquisition measures. That a structured reading comprehension strategy for college-age students was effective has implications for the design of remedial courses at 2- and 4-year colleges.