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THE INTERESTS AND PREFERENCES OF SELECTED SEVENTH GRADE PUPILS OF MACON, GEORGIA A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF ATLANTA UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS BY W. H. INGRAM, JR. SCHOOL OF EDUCATION ATLANTA, GEORGIA AUGUST I960 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The writer of this thesis wishes to acknowledge with grateful ap¬ preciation the assistance and cooperation of all who helped to make this study possible. Thanks are extended to the participants of this study and other key personnel in Macon, Georgia; namely, Mr. William Henry Travis, Miss Agnes May, Mrs. Lilia Parker, Mrs. Kate Shakespeare, and Mr. Bryant Henry Price. Special thanks are extended to Dr. Lynette Saine, advisor, and Dr. L. E. Boyd, co-advisor, for their patience, understanding, and helpful assistance without which the successful completion of this project would have been impossible. Finally, thanks and appreciation must go to Mrs. M. E. James for her responsibility in the final typing of this thesis. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ü LIST OF TABLES v Chapter I. INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale 1 Evolution of the Problem 3 Contribution of Educational Knowledge 1* Statement of the Problem I* Purpose of the Study 5 Definition of Terms 5 Limitation of the Study 5 Locale of the Study 5 Period of the Study 6 Method of Research 6 Subjects and Materials 6 Description of the Instruments Used in this Study , . 7 Research Procedure 8 Survey of Related Literature 8 Summary of Related Literature 19 II. ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF DATA 21 Prefatory Statement 21 General Interests of the Subjects of this Study 21 Comic Book Interest of Pupils 21 Magazine Reading Interests of the Pupils 23 Magazine Section Interests of the Pupils 27 Pupils' Interests in Romance 27 Magazine Interests as Revealed by the Study 29 Movie Star Interests of the Pupils 31 Radio Listening Choices of the Pupils 31 Television Viewing 3h Interest in Books 35 Importance of TV Programs with Pupils 36 Interest in Movie Stars 38 Summary 1*3 III. SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS . 1*5 Rationale and Evolution of the Problem 1*5 Contribution to Educational Knowledge 1*6 Statement of the Problem and Purposes 1*6 Definition of Terms 1*7 Limitations of the Study 1*7 iii iv TABLE OF CONTENTS—Continued Chapter Page III. SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS (Continued) Locale of the Study U7 Method of Research I48 Findings U8 Period of the Study U8 Summary of Major Preferences 52 Differences Between Boys' Interests and Girls' Interests 53 Areas of Highest Interest 53 Conclusions 5U Implications 5U Recommendations 55 BIBLIOGRAPHY 56 LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Numbers and Percentages of Leisure Time Activities Reported by the Seventh Grade Pupils 22 2. Numbers and Percentages of Comic Book Preferences of the Seventh Grade Pupils 23 3. Numbers and Percentages of Magazine Reading Interests of the Seventh Grade Pupils 26 1|. Numbers and Percentages of Magazine Section Interests of the Seventh Grade Pupils 28 5>. Numbers and Percentages of Romantic Story Interests of the Seventh Grade Pupils 29 6. Numbers and Percentages of Magazine Interest of the Seventh Grade Pupils 30 7. Numbers and Percentages of Interests in Movie Stars of the Seventh Grade Pupils 32 8. Numbers and Percentages of Radio Listening Hours of the Seventh Grade Pupils 33 9. Numbers and Percentages of Time Spent in Viewing Television by the Seventh Grade Pupils 3b 10. Distribution of Reading Interest in Books as Reported by 116 Seventh Grade Pupils 36 11. Relative Importance Expressed With Regard to TV Programs by the Seventh Grade Pupils 37 12. Report of Feminine Interest in Movie Stars by Ii5 Seventh Graders 39 13. Numbers and Percentages of Television Program Preferences of the Seventh Grade Pupils J4O 111. Interest as Expressed with Reference to Important People by 75 Seventh Graders ill 15. Persons Whom the Seventh Grade Pupils Would Like to Emulate. 1|2 v CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Rationale.—A permanent reading habit based on a love of reading for all normal children is the most important purpose of the school's in¬ structional effort. Achievement of this purpose would transform the whole program of in-school and after-school education. It is widely recognized, however, that children now read below the standards justifiably to be ex¬ pected for their ages and intelligence. Still more disconcerting is the « fact that great numbers of them fail to turn voluntarily to reading for in¬ formation and recreation. How best to vitalize reading for children is a matter of contro¬ versy among teachers, makers of courses of study, and authors of textbooks. One group long dominant in our public schools, has insisted that adults should choose from classic and contemporary literature the selections which they are convinced children should know. This plan, used almost univer¬ sally for decades, has failed to establish the love for reading which had been anticipated. More recently, a second approach predicated upon the sup¬ posed popularity with children of lightweight and ephemeral materials has had wide vogue, but it too, has achieved indifferent results. There has been increasing recognition of the role played in learn¬ ing and habit formation by the factor of interest. Granting the dominance of this factor, it seems the high objective of developing a love of good reading might be attained through providing children with an ample supply 1 2 of literary selections which stand where the lines of student popularity and critical approval converge. The major difficulty in testing this plan has been the lack of knowledge as to which selections children genuinely enjoy. It is true that there have been many reading lists issued by ex¬ perts on children's reading interests. However, these experts in many in¬ stances have been in conflict with each other and with the results of the investigations which have been made in this field. Even the findings of the investigations themselves have been frequently in conflict, and because the approaches to the problem made by the various studies have been so di¬ verse and so dependent at times upon intricate statistical manipulation, means have been lacking for harmonizing the conflicts. Boys and girls of pre-adolescent and early years can begin to understand the value of learning techniques for making and keeping friends and for working with people. They are interested in learning how to dis¬ agree with people without quarreling, how to work cooperatively with others, and how to enter into social situations as hosts and guests. They are not equally ready for these experiences and sometimes girls, because of their greater maturity appear ready before boys do, but all see value in learn¬ ing to understand their own needs and those of others and developing tech¬ niques for meeting them. That information with respect to children's actual choices of read¬ ing materials is chaotic, is widely agreed. Might it be possible to find a procedure for studying children's reading interests which would meet tests such as the following? 1. Be sufficiently simple that it could be carried out in any school by a careful teacher without any special training in statistical procedures. 2. Yield results readily incorporable with the results secured by 3 other independent investigations carried out through the same procedure, thus providing for an accumulation of basic data. 3* Make possible the determination of the number of pupil reports on a given literary selection (secured by a determined number of teachers in a determined number of schools) required to yield a dependable reading interest score for the given selec¬ tion. U. Provide a measure of the relative effect of age, intelligence, and sex interests. 5>. Provide a measure of the influence upon children's reading choices of such interests factors as adventure, humor, roman¬ tic love. 6. Provide for the influence upon children's reading choices of the quality of the teaching (superior, average, weak) in the classes where the selections were studied. 7. Provide a measure of the change from grade to grade of chil¬ dren's enjoyment of literary materials. An examination of a considerable number of the studies in the field of children's reading interests seems to indicate that certain basic errors in collecting and processing data have been repeated again and again in spite of earlier demonstrations of superior procedures. An enigma in this situation is the fact that at times these errors have been repeated by studies carried out tinder expert sponsorship. There should be a sequential program for broadening interests and cultivating tastes is a gradual process. Continuous exposure to a variety of good materials is mandatory. The program for each child must begin where he is. His present interests and tastes should serve as springboards for future improvement. The main objective is to get the child to read. Evolution of the Problem.—The writer has been for sometime asso¬ ciated with reading matter in one form or another and has been faced with reading problems of many kinds. In his latest capacity he is concerned with getting school children to do more reading of a worthwhile nature. k While getting children to increase their reading has been and still is the main interest, increasing the reading habits of the public-at-large is the problem of librarians, generally. It is the opinion of the writer that these people should be studied as to the reasons for their lack of interest in reading or to the extent that interest affects the amount that they read. To find an answer to this problem, this writer felt that interests and preferences of certain se¬ lected pupils would give a great and important picture of what is needed to activate or to stimulate these persons into reading more.