In this study, the attitudes of college students towards literature were measured by a scale constructed after the manner of Thurstone's attitude scale (
1) and compared with their attitudes towards sports as measured by Prof. Koga's scale (
2) and with their emotional responses as tested by Terman's M-F Test, Part 111 (
3). An attempt was made also to see if there were any relation between the results of these tests and the educational grades of the parents of the t stees.
Construction of the scale……Out of about 200 opinions on literature collected by the writer, 53 were selected on the basis of K. A. Wang's criteria. These were rated by 54 judges and three of them were omitted on account of their high Q values. To test the reliability, the remaining 50 statements were then given to 372 students who gave ratings twice at an interval of two weeks. The statements finally adopted and their scale values folow:
No. Statements Scale values
1. Literature is the highest art of mankind.………2.4706
2. L. teaches us how to live.………2.0863
3. L. cultivates a sympathetic attitude towards life.………1.9706
4. L. gives us a wider view of life.………1.8585
5. L. promotes the mutual understanding between men and women.………1.7321
6. L. gives us the pleasure of reading.………1.6800
7. L. has both good and bad effects upon us. 1.4964
8. L. exposes the dark side of life.………1.2964
9. L. is an amusement and nothing more.…1.0814
10. L. makes man sentimental.………0.9700
11. L. excites our curiosity about the opposite sex.………0.7678
12. L. is read by those who want to satisfy their vanity rather than by those who seek genuine pleasure.………0.5671
13. L. deprives us of scientific spirit.………0.1207
14. L. is apt to make man vainglorious.…0.0000
Discrepancies between the experimental scale separation and the calculated scale separation were 13% of the total range of scale values. This was perhaps due to the ambiguity of the meaning of literature.
Results…The scale was given to three groups of students: the students of 1) Department of Literature, of Economics and of Law, 2) Department of Medicine and of Engineering, of Keiogijuku University and 3) Tokyo Girls' Medical College. The total number of subjects was 794. The results may be summarized as follows:
1. With respect to the attitude towards literature, there was practically no difference among the different groups of students. The female students showed a little more preference towards literature than the male students, however, the difference was found to be statistically insiginificant.
2. The scale used seemd to be inadequate to discriminate between the five general attitudes towards literature as expressed in the following statements: (1) I decidedly like literature, (2) I rather like literature, (3) I neither like nor dislike literature, (4) I rather dislike literature and (5) I decidedly dislike literature. However, it may discriminate 1) and 2) from the remaining three attitudes, 3) 4) 5).
3. The coefficients of correlation between the attitudes towards literature and sports were:
(a) Dept. of Literature, Economics & Law…0.206
(b) Dept. of Medicine & Engineering………0.467
(c) Girls' Medical College………0.039
Application of null hypothesis (ρ=0) to (a) showed that the correlation was significant at its value.
4. The coefficient of correlation between the attitudes towards literature and the results of the emotional response test was -0.032 and that between the attitudes sports and emotional responses was -0.043.
5. The educational grades of the parents of the testees had no influence upon the
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