Motivation, willingness to read, and ability to enjoy reading are dimensions of reading
found in any literacy activity. While research supports the notion that most teenage readers are
less motivated than they were when they were younger, current trends indicate they do find time
to read for pleasure when they want to do so. Connections between students and books can be
studied in more detail when popular book series are chosen and utilized by the students to engage
in reading. If phenomenological literacy events are better understood, educators will be better
prepared to motivate student readership in their students.
Thus, the goal of this study was to answer the following question: What characteristics
of literary elements of a book series most motivate secondary school students to engage in
reading? A total of 57 students (30 males, 27 females) completed the study by responding to a
researcher-generated Literary Elements of Book Series (LEBS) inventory. Twelve different
items were included on the inventory to determine student preferences for book series:
characters, plot, theme, location, types of conflict, time period, type of story, marketing tools,
titles for their own series, tone of conclusion and outcome of story. Most items had options from
which students could select a response or select the “other” category and write in their own
response.
The commonalities found in responses overall all show that the gender of the participant
did not greatly influence the choices made as males and females often gave the same responses
and student-generated answers. The findings and discussion found in this study revealed
expected results based on current research while yielding some surprising trends in student
preferences regarding reading motivation.