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Middle School Children's Responses to Enid Blyton in ‘The Bradford Book Flood Experiment’
Author(s) -
Ingham Jennie
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
journal of research in reading
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.077
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1467-9817
pISSN - 0141-0423
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9817.1982.tb00128.x
Subject(s) - popularity , psychology , reading (process) , test (biology) , mathematics education , developmental psychology , social psychology , linguistics , paleontology , philosophy , biology
During‘The Bradford Book Flood Experiment’(1976–80), a longitudinal record was kept of the reading of one year‐group of children in each of four middle schools in predominantly working‐class areas. The children's choices of, and responses to, books were recorded on reading record forms, questionnaires which were completed by the children each time they read a book. Subsequently, it was possible to isolate responses to books written by Enid Blyton and compare responses to these books with responses to all the other authors together (i.e., to an‘average’other author). The chi‐square test of significance was applied throughout. It was found that children responded more favourably to Enid Blyton in response to every question, the differences being statistically significant in every instance. Children's reasons for choice of books by Enid Blyton are quoted and categorized. An attempt is made to analyse the reasons for Enid Blyton's popularity.