HOW TO COUNTERACT THE DROP IN ADULT READERS: VALIDATION IN THE ITALIAN CONTEXT OF THE LITERARY RESPONSE QUESTIONNAIRE

In Italy, the number of readers, monitored through nationwide statistical surveys, (ISTAT, 2022), manifests a significant decline from the age of 19. There is an urgent need to identify strategies to counter the phenomenon of disaffection with reading and to prevent functional illiteracy. The paper reports the outcomes of an empirical research that aimed to investigate the profile of the adult reader. The interest was in identifying effective data collection tools to help promote the enjoyment of reading. Specifically, Miall & Kuiken's (1995) Literary Response Questionnaire (LRQ) was translated and adapted to the Italian national context, involving university students from the Department of Education Sciences at Roma Tre University and secondary school students from the Lazio region. The questionnaire was subjected to preliminary validity and reliability testing. An exploratory factor analysis was carried out. The internal consistency of each scale was then checked through the calculation of Cronbach's Alpha. Following the verification of the validity and reliability of the measurement instrument, averages were calculated for each dimension and comparisons were made on participants based on grouping variables through the "One Way Anova Test" with Tukey post hoc test, which determines the existence of a statistically significant difference between the averages of different groups. Specifically, respondents were compared based on three categorized comparison variables: gender, the number of books read in the past year, and the number of books in the home. SPSS version 27 and Mplus v.8 statistical software were used for data analysis. The research findings contribute to reflections on the strategic role that formal learning contexts can play in forming strong and engaged readers.