Operationalize A Construct: What Type Of Books Are More Likely To Result In Non-Readers Becoming People Who Read On A Regular Basis?
Department of Communication, University of Delaware
COMM703: Communication Research
The Construct
The construct I have chosen to operationalize is finding out what type of books are more likely to result in non-readers becoming people who read on a regular basis.
Operationalizing The Construct
Conduct a survey that includes the questions:
- After a period of non-reading, what was the first book that started your journey to reading more frequently?
- How many pages was this book?
- What genre was this book?
- What inspired you to read this book?
- Is it a print book, ebook, or audiobook?
- What is the Lexile Score of this book?
- Have you had any lifestyle changes that led you to read more?
- How many hours do you spend reading each week?
Evaluate data from Amazon.com. Locate accounts that made their first book purchase in 1 year. Find out what that first book purchase was, and find out what books have been purchased since that first book.
Evaluate data from libraries to see what initial books being borrowed have led patrons to borrow more books in the future.
Ask patrons at the library what books led them to read more books in the future.
Ask librarians what books they think lead non-readers to become readers.
Post a question to Reddit on r/books asking Redditors what books have led them to read more books in the future.
Hypothesis
There is no relationship between the types of books that are more likely to result in non-readers becoming regular readers.
I have chosen to use a null hypothesis because there are so many directions for this question to go in, I wanted a hypothesis that would be open to all of the information that could be found. The goal of this hypothesis is to find out what types of books we can suggest to new readers, with the greater likelihood that they will continue to read after they finish this first book.