Novel Reading Maturity Scale

Designed to assess the maturity level of the novels which students read, the Novel Reading Maturity Scale (NRMS) is based on the notion that fiction of high quality is characterized by a number of themes or topics. The list of 22 topics in NRMS came from a survey of several guides on books for teenagers. To explore the reliability of the scale, five groups of students, with over 400 in each group, were asked to use the scale on a different novel each member of the group had recently read in school. The average agreement over all themes ranged from 70 to 84 percent. Additional reliability data came from small groups of English teachers who used the scale on the same five novels on which the students had reported. Teachers and students agreed on the presence or absence of 17 to 22 of the 22 themes. [This document is one of those reviewed in The Research Instruments Project (TRIP) monograph "Measures for Research and Evaluation in the English Language Arts" to be published by the Committee on Research of the National Council of Teachers of English in cooperation with the ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading and Communication Skills. A TRIP review which precedes the document lists its category (Literature), title, author, date, and age range (junior high--postsecondary), and describes the instrument's purpose and physical characteristics.] (JM)