READING HABITS OF STUDENTS. a survey of students at the London School of Economics
| Pages | 42-57 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb026314 |
| Date | 01 February 1962 |
| Published date | 01 February 1962 |
| Author | A.N. OPPENHEIM |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
READING HABITS OF STUDENTS
a survey of students at the London School of Economics
A. N. OPPENHEIM, B.A., PH.D.
London School
of Economics
INTRODUCTION
THIS IS a report on a readership survey carried out among the students at
the London School of Economics in the beginning of
1960.
The survey was
carried out by a group of third-year sociology students under the direction
of the writer. The primary purpose of the study was to give some practical
research training to these students, as part of their course. The survey does
not, in some respects, come up to professional standards since on-the-job
training and lack of experience inevitably produce shortcomings, but the
results are none the less worth having, and yield interesting comparisons
with results of earlier readership surveys among students.
PRELIMINARY DISCUSSIONS
It was clear from the first that the survey would have to cover many more
aspects than, say, the newspaper-reading survey carried out by Booker.1
We were interested in book-reading, both textbooks and extra-curricular
books, in the use made of the various LSE libraries and of public and other
libraries both in London and at home, in the various influences on the
students' reading habits, in expenditure on books and periodicals, in their
assessment of the LSE main library and their attitude to it, etc., and all this
was to be related to a variety of background data such as the respondent's
age and sex, year of study, subject of specialization, social class, type of
secondary education, smoking habits (smoking is prohibited in most lib-
raries),
and so on. This required the design of a somewhat formidable
questionnaire.
DESIGN AND SAMPLING
Almost immediately one major problem came up, namely: Who
should be
regarded as an
LSE
student,
for the purposes of our survey?
We decided almost at once to eliminate the intercollegiate and the occa-
sional students from our sample—although they comprise over one-third
42
June 1962 STUDENTS' READING HABITS
of the population of the School and do use the library to some extent. We
decided to leave out the evening students (another 17 per cent) because of
the difficulty of interviewing them and because of their relatively restricted
access to the library. Next, we eliminated the higher degree students
(15
per
cent) and those doing a number of specialized diplomas. After much dis-
cussion we decided neither to eliminate, nor to pay special attention to,
overseas students, though their reading habits might well be very different.
This left us with a somewhat more manageable 'core population' of full-
time daytime first degree students studying for the B.SC.(ECON.) in all its
variations, for the
B.A.
or
B.SC.
in sociology, for various other
B.A.
degrees,
for a Law degree, or for certificates in the Social Science Department.*
This reduced population
was
clearly dominated by
men
on
a
B.SC.(ECON.)
degree course, who constituted 55 per cent. We now needed to decide
which comparisons we wished to make and how to reduce the danger of
confounded variables.
In our own case, to strive for representativeness would have become a
little meaningless after leaving out the intercollegiate, occasional, evening,
and higher degree students, and so we opted for a
factorial
design.
We decided that we wanted a design that would enable us to compare
first-, second-, and third-year students without having to worry about the
relative proportions of men and women students, and about the course
being studied; to compare men and women students while holding year
and course constant, and to compare the influence of course studied irre-
spective of year or sex—and, also, to explore the relative combinations of
these major
variables.
To do this, we decided that the following would be
a desirable scheme:
Daytime
first
degree students
First year
Second year
Third year
MEN
34
33
33
100
WOMEN
34
33
33
100
Within this scheme the men would be selected on a representative basis,
their courses would be noted and, within each year-group, women would
be selected who would match the men students by age and by course
studied, as far as possible. In this way, if one were, say, comparing third-
year men with third-year women, these two groups would contain the
same numbers studying each course, and be matched for age.
A sample thus selected would be representative for
men,
since there nor-
* Some 80 per cent of readers in the Main Library at any time are day undergraduate
students.
43
To continue reading
Request your trial