The Construction and Experimental, Cross-National Testing of the First Version of the Questionnaire on the Readers' Backgrounds in the Folktale Project. Folktale: A Cross-Cultural, Interdisciplinary Study of the Experience of Literature. Paper 5.

This paper, the fifth of seven, part of an interdisciplinary project on the context of reading and reading research that explores similarities and dissimilarities in the response to literature in readers from different cultures, describes the methods used for the construction of a questionnaire for readers' social, educational, financial, and literary backgrounds. The paper discusses the 28 questions posed in the first international version of the questionnaire, which was made as comprehensive as possible. After explaining that the first version was then tested under field conditions, the paper relates that the subjects, 45 United States high school students in Teaneck, New Jersey and 57 Danish high school students in Copenhagen, were administered the questionnaire. The paper states that the results provided researchers with data to prepare the final version of the questionnaire to be used for the "Folktale Project." The questionnaire is appended. (MS)