title: Agreement among readers on what is relevant in self-help psychology books.
abstract: It was hypothesized that text marking in self-help psychology books would indicate that readers agree on which pages and lines contain relevant information. Previously owned copies of two self-help book titles (n=48, n=38), all with marked text, were collected from second-hand book stores and scored for line and page marking. Chi-squares for goodness-of-fit yielded significant differences between observed and chance agreement in marking behavior. Intraclass and KR-20 correlations were significantly different from zero, suggesting that readers agreed on what information was relevant and irrelevant. Actual users of self-help books may have similar standards because of cultural values, social group relations, or common problem experiences.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. forest@ms.umanitoba.ca
authors.forename: James J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Forest
authors.forename: Kevin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Del Ben
authors.forename: Stuart B
authors.initials: SB
authors.lastname: Toews
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001877:Books; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D011584:Psychology; D011932:Reading; D012919:Social Behavior; D012945:Social Values; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires