Television Viewing and Leisure Reading: A Qualitative Analysis

Abstract

The objective of the research was to determine if students’ preferences for reading or television viewing were related to the quality of their leisure reading choices. The families of 198 fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students were asked to complete television and reading logs for four weeks. Sixty-six students were identified from this sample as representing either the upper or lower quartiles in terms of their leisure reading behavior (number of books read per month) or their television viewing habits (number of hours watched per week). Four groups emerged in the following categories: 1) heavy TV viewing-heavy reading; 2) light TV viewing-heavy reading; 3) light TV viewing-light reading; 4) heavy TV viewing-light reading. The quality of the leisure reading choices for each of the four groups was analyzed using a modification of the Gray and Rogers Maturity in Reading Scale. Results indicated that students in the "heavy TV-light reading" group tended to choose books of lower quality than the other groups in the sample.