THE EFFECT OF A BOOKTALK PRESENTATION OF SELECTED TITLES ON THE ATTITUDE TOWARD READING OF SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS AND ON THE CIRCULATION OF THESE TITLES IN THE HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY.

摘要

This study examined the effect of booktalking on the attitude toward reading of senior high school students and on the circulation of the titles presented. A Solomon Four Group design was used, and data were gathered using the Lewis and Teale Reading Attitude Survey as a pretest and a posttest, and by examining the circulation records of the titles presented. The 1984-1985 freshman class of Emporia High School served as the experimental population, and received four different levels of the instrument. Groups were levelled on the basis of five variables: gender, teacher, time of day of the class, size of the class, and reading level. Circulation records for grades 9-12 were examined to determine if the presentation had had an effect on the other three grades, in addition to the effect on the experimental population. One of the high school librarians was trained to do booktalks, and gave a booktalk presentation to one half of the population during their English classes. The attitude survey was administered during English classes to one half of the population as a pretest, and to the whole population as a posttest. The differences between the means of the prestest and posttest scores was not significant. The differences among the means of the four groups' posttest scores were also not significant. No significant differences in attitude toward reading were found between boys and girls or among the three reading levels. There were significant differences among the teachers, however, showing an effect on both their students' attitude toward reading and the number of books that their students checked out after hearing a booktalk presentation. The number of titles checked out increased substantially, and for eight of the fourteen titles presented, stayed at an above-average level for three months after the presentation. The circulation went up most for the freshman, but each of the three other classes increased their circulation of the presented titles substantially as well. Girls checked out about 80% of the books presented and students at the higher reading levels checked out almost twice the number of books than those at the lower levels.