Participants will fill out the 'Author Recognition Test' and the 'kids these days' scale in random order.
Author Recognition test:
Below you will see a list of names. Some of the people in the list are popular writers (of books, magazine articles, and/or newspaper columns) and some are not. Please read the names and click a check mark next to the names of those individuals who you know to be writers. Do not guess, but only check those who you know to be writers. [foils scored -1, correct authors scored 1, I do not recognize any of these names as authors=9999; all authors presented in random order with 'I do not recognize any of these names as authors' always at the bottom]
Marilyn Jager Adams (f)
Isaac Asimov
Adriana Bus (f)
Barbara Cartland
James Clavell
Ian Fleming
Stephen J. Gould
Andrew Greeley
Lee Gunderson (f)
Gay Ivey (f)
James Kim (f)
Dean Koontz
Judith Krantz
Louis L'Amour
James Michener
David Reinking (f)
Mark Sadoski (f)
Timothy Shanahan (f)
Sidney Sheldon
Danielle Steel
J.R.R. Tolkien
Sharon Vaughn (f)
Irving Wallace
Joseph Wambaugh
Bob Woodward
I do not recognize any of these names as authors
Scoring on the task will be taking the proportion of the correct items that were checked and subtracting the proportion of foils checked.
Kids these days scale-literacy:
We would like to know your thoughts about how children of today enjoy reading.
Compared to when you were a child: Do you think children these days enjoy reading more than they used to, less than they used to, or the same amount as they used to when you were a child. [more than they used to, less than they used to, the same amount as they used to=4]
If more is selected:
How much more do children enjoy reading compared to when you were a child: [a lot more=1, somewhat more=2, a little more=3]
If less is selected:
How much less do children enjoy reading compared to when you were a child: [a lot less=7, somewhat less=6, a little less=5].
We will then, on a separate page, ask the participants age and political orientation [7-1 unnumbered Likert scale from very Conservative=7, Conservative=6, Somewhat Conservative=5, Middle of the Road=4, Somewhat Liberal=3, Liberal=2, very Liberal=1] for use as CVs
