Reading Bestsellers Survey

February 16, 2020

You are invited to participate in this research study about the types of books that you read, how you choose them and whether or not you share your thoughts about reading with anyone.

The survey is in English, but there is an opportunity for you to tell us about other languages that you read in. For more information about our academic study and how we will use the data you provide, please click on the information letter below.

Thank you for completing the survey!

• Reading Bestsellers Survey

Purpose of the Study: From this research we wish to learn about how readers choose what they read, whether or not they read bestselling fiction, the devices that readers use for reading and whether they share their ideas and thoughts about reading with others either online or face-to-face. The responses to our questionnaire will help us to understand how readers over the age of 19 who read fiction in English decide what to read and what they define as a ‘bestseller.’ This questionnaire forms part of our research for a book that we will write to be published by Cambridge University Press.

Compensation: You have the option to enter our prize draw for a CD$100 voucher for a bookseller of your choice. If you choose to enter the draw you will have a 1 in 1000 chance to win a CD$100 book. For every 1000 participants in the questionnaire the researchers will offer a CD$100 book voucher. To enter the prize draw, you will need to enter your email address at the end of the questionnaire.

Additional Information

• Information Letter

Title of the study:
Reading Bestsellers: Multimodal Practices in a Transmedia Environment

Principal Investigator:

Dr Danielle Fuller
Professor, Department of English and Film Studies
University of Alberta
+1 (780) 492-3258 [General Office] [NB. Due to budget cuts EFS faculty do not have telephones]

Co-investigator:

Dr DeNel Rehberg Sedo
Professor, Dept of Communication Studies
Mount Saint Vincent University
Halifax, NS, Canada, B3M 2J6
+1 (902) 457 6478

Benefits:
There are no other direct benefits to participants in this study.

Risks:
There are no risks to those who participate in this online questionnaire.

Confidentiality and Anonymity:
The information that you will share will remain strictly confidential and will be used solely for the purposes of this research. If you enter your email address for the prize draw, it will be separated from your responses so that your answers remain anonymous. Once the prize draw has been completed, the file containing the email addresses will be destroyed. The only people who will have access to the research data are Drs Danielle Fuller and DeNel Rehberg Sedo. Your answers to open-ended questions may be used verbatim in presentations and publications but you will not be identified. Although this research involves no risk to you personally, we do recommend that you use standard safety measures such as signing out of your account, closing your browser and locking your screen or device when you are no longer using them / when you have completed the study. Results will be published in pooled (aggregate) format. Anonymity is guaranteed since you are not being asked to provide your name or any personal information.

Data Storage:
Electronic copies of the survey data will be encrypted and stored on password protected computers, namely our home computers and on our work computers. Our work computers are located in the department of English and Film Studies for Dr Danielle Fuller at the University of Alberta, and for Dr DeNel Rehberg Sedo at Mount Saint Vincent University in Nova Scotia.

Voluntary Participation:
You are under no obligation to participate and if you choose to participate, you may refuse to answer questions that you do not want to answer. Should you choose to withdraw midway through the electronic survey simply close the link and no responses will be included. Given the anonymous nature of the survey, once you have submitted your responses it will no longer be possible to withdraw them from the study.

Information about the Study Results:
The results of this study will appear in a book entitled Reading Bestsellers: Multimodal Practices in a Transmedia Environment (Cambridge University Press, 2022).

Contact Information:
If you have any questions or require more information about the study itself, you may contact the researchers at the numbers mentioned herein.

The plan for this study has been reviewed by a Research Ethics Board at the University of Alberta. If you have any questions regarding your rights as a research participant or how the research is being conducted you may contact the Research Ethics Office at (+1) 780-492-2615.