Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Dyslexia among undergraduate students in Malaysian universities

I want to share some of interesting research about Dyslexia among undergraduate students in Malaysian universities that I obtained from an International Conference on Teaching & Learning in Higher Education 2009.

Dyslexia is condition where individual having persistent difficulties in reading, spelling, writing and organizing thoughts on paper resulting in difficulties in reading and understanding examination questions, writing answers, completing examinations in time and completing assignments.

The study was conducted in 10 universities; government and private. A Total of 240 undergraduate students participated in this study (Medical, dental and pharmacy students were excluded from this study). They were screen by Adult Dyslexia Inventory. Researches found that the prevalence of dyslexia among undergraduates was 4.66%. They also found that dyslexia prevalence was higher in the private universities compared to government universities which were 5.23% and 4.22% respectively. Previous study have found that prevalence of dyslexia among undergraduate students range from 4% - 10% and even in certain studies found 15%.

The findings make me wondering whether some of undergraduate medical students having dyslexia? Perhaps similar study should be conducted on medical students to explore this matters. Why this is important? It is because there are different methods of assessment for the students with dyslexia. The special assessment methods was done and implemented by US and UK universities to their dyslexia students.

Perhaps we should appreciate and recognize dyslexia students therefore appropriate assessment methods can be administered to these students.