Undergraduates' Epistemological Beliefs About Reading Literature

• In Event: 63.032 - Literary Reasoning and Interpretation as Cultural Repertoires of Practice

Abstract

Objectives and perspectives

Understanding what students believe about learning from literature is central to English Language Arts instruction. However, very little research exists on epistemic beliefs in literature. One exception is the Literature Epistemology Scale (LES), (Yukhymenko et al., 2014), used previously to measure epistemic beliefs in adolescents. However, given that even beyond high school, many are unprepared to face modern literacy challenges (Ivey, 2011), this study investigates how their performance on the LES correlates to measures of reading comprehension, existing epistemology scales, and self-reports of reading behaviors.


Methods and data

We recruited 43 undergraduate first-year psychology students. The LES is an 18-item scale, which measured beliefs about multiple meanings (i.e., beliefs about whether literature is open to interpretation; 6 items), multiple reading (i.e., beliefs about whether one needs to read a literary work multiple times to appreciate it; 6 items) and social functioning (i.e., beliefs about how literature influences behavior in the everyday world; 6 items) on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree). Twelve questions from the ACT Reading Practice Test served as a measure of reading skill (ACT Inc., 2014). We also collected self-reports of how much the students liked reading and how much time they spent reading outside of class relative to their peers, on a 3-point scale (1 = less than my peers; 3 = more than my peers).


Results

We conducted an exploratory factor analysis on our items, which demonstrated that each item loaded onto its original construct. Chronbach’s alpha values confirmed the reliability of the three subscales: multiple meaning (α = .825), multiple reading (α = .854), and social functioning (α = .822). All three subscales correlated positively with self-reports of reading enjoyment: multiple meaning, r (41) = .52, p < .001; multiple reading, r (41) = .644, p < .001; and social functioning, r (41) = .654, p < .001. These three subscales also correlated positively with self-reports of time spent reading: multiple meaning, r (41) = .313, p ¬= .41; multiple meaning, r (41) = .625, p < .001; and social functioning, r (41) = .554, p < .001.
Further, scores on the multiple meaning subscale were correlated with performance on the ACT reading test, r (41) = .302, p = .049.


Significance

Our studies suggest that three factors contribute to epistemological beliefs about literature: 1) whether literature is open to interpretation (multiple meanings), 2) whether one must re-read literary works to appreciate them (multiple reading), and 3) whether reading literature helps one understand the everyday world (social functioning). Further, we found that high scores on the multiple meaning subscale correlated with more sophisticated literary reading skills and habits. Overall, this suggests that the LES reliably and accurately measures several dimensions of the epistemology of literature. Our scale therefore has utility for researchers who study epistemology and it may have applications in assessing the impact of literacy interventions. Future studies will further investigate the link between reading performance and epistemological beliefs in literature.

Authors

• Stephen W Briner, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Mariya Yukhymenko, California State University - Fresno

• Kathryn S. McCarthy, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Candice Burkett, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Joe Magliano, Northern Illinois University

• Carol D. Lee, Northwestern University

• Susan R. Goldman, University of Illinois at Chicago