| The purpose of this study was to ascertain what effects self-concept has on a reader's response to literature. The subjects were four minority female students enrolled in a special developmental program in a public urban college who volunteered to participate.;After being tested on the Tennessee Self-Concept Scale (Fitts, 1965), students read at home one of the three stories to which they responded freely in writing. They were later interviewed within two days regarding the story. After the first interview, the students were given the second story to read at home and respond to freely in writing. They were then interviewed regarding the second story. This same procedure was repeated for the third story. All interviews were taped. The data collected, the focused written responses and interview data were analyzed using content analysis and coded on the sentence level utilizing Ethnograph, a computer coding system (Seidel, Kjolseth, Seymour, 1988).;Students' responses were compared to their self-concept scores to ascertain what aspect of self was being revealed and used to interpret the readings. Results indicated that the aspect of self most revealed was that aspect of self which was most problematic to them as indicated by the self-concept score and their responses. For all respondents, family self-concept scores were the highest, followed by personal and social self. Lastly, a comparison between low and high self-concept respondents revealed that low self-concept respondents generated more responses to each and every story. In addition, low self-concept respondents generated more responses in each and every category (family, personal and social self, identification). Low self-concept respondents had strong identification with particular characters, whereas the high self-concept respondents did not. |
