Analysis of English Literature Student’s Preference of Reading Literary Books or Watching the Movie Adaptation and their Accounts for the Tendency

Abstract

Thesis. Today’s students are very much influenced by globalisation and advances in technology. This has brought about some changes in the attitudes and perceptions of the new generation of students which are worthy of attention. The present study aimed to shed light on one such shift of focus and explored Iranian literature students' preferences for either reading or watching the movie adaptations of literary works. The second aim of the study was to examine the reasons for their preferences and to analyse them to see where they originated from. Concept. To this end, a mixed methods design was used in which the quantitative data was gathered through a questionnaire from the University of Mazandaran English literature students (N=141). In the questionnaire, their tendencies towards either watching movies or reading literary books was explored. Based on convenient sampling, for the qualitative data, a semi-structured interview was conducted with 5 students from each category to find the reasons behind their preferences. The data from the interviews were transcribed and then content analysed. Results and conclusion. The results showed there existed a higher tendency towards movie watching (58%) among these students. Content analysis of the students’ responses to interview questions also revealed some factors affecting their inclination towards movie watching. The main reason for such a tendency was mentioned to be time constraints. Oher reasons were disclosed which will be reported in the article. The implications of the study will also be discussed fully under conclusion.