Graduate Research Papers

Availability

Open Access Graduate Research Paper

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare current Accelerated Reader YA book lists to YALSA’s Best Fiction for Young Adults lists from 2019 to 2022 to examine the number of current YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults titles included on the AR list and determine whether there is a discrepancy between the percent of YALSA books overall and the percent of YALSA AR books that meet the diversity definition (We Need Diverse Books, 2022). Data was collected by looking at 314 titles from the 2019-2022 YALSA Best of the Best List and then comparing two review sources to determine diversity within each title after which each book was also analyzed to determine if an Accelerated Reader test existed. Data analysis showed three overarching understandings of the diversity of books within the Accelerated Reader framework: (1) a large percentage (86%) of all recent YALSA titles demonstrated diversity; (2) 85% of the YALSA titles with AR tests demonstrated diversity; and (3) YALSA books with AR tests have similar diversity types as all recent YALSA books, with slightly fewer LGBTQIA+ books that have AR Tests (22.8% compares to 25.7% of all YALSA titles). Conversely the AR titles had slightly more books with People of Color (38.5% rather than 35.3% of all YALSA titles were found to contain People of Color as a form of diversity).

Year of Submission

2023

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Department of Curriculum and Instruction

Department

Division of School Library Studies

First Advisor

Karla Krueger

Date Original

5-2023

Object Description

1 PDF file (52 pages)

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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