Document Type : Research Paper
Author
Faculty member, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran
Abstract
This study was conducted to promote information concerning book- reading, and leisure time (i.e. non-academic) reading habits in the target population. The statistical population of this investigation embraced high school students studying in Grades 1-3 (9 th- 11th years) of Fars Province. The sample, comprising 3585 sudjects, drew students from the center of the Province (Shiraz) and five other cities selected randomly.
The results show that: a major part, i.e. 36.2% of the whole student leisure time is wasted; 22.8% of it is spent on academic studies; 17.6% is devoted to TV watching; and only 1.1% of leisure time is alloted to free (i.e. extracurricular) reading. This means the daily time spent on free reading by individual students is minutes. Girls devote more time to both academic and non-academic reading than boys. Regression analysis indicates that, disregarding gender effect, speed of reading, membership of public libraries, student’s family members’ study habits, exposure to stoiy telling in childhood years, student’s OPA, and father occuption constitute the most significant predictors of the students’ free time reading habits.
Keywords
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