Skaitymo skatinimo prоgramų rezultatų ir poveikio vertinimas

Abstract

In recent decades, national reading promotion programmes in many developed countries have
become a particularly relevant task of education and culture policy, the solution of which is expected
to contribute to social cohesion and the development of population’s information literacy and critical
thinking. As the popularity of these programs grows, so does research on their outcomes and impact,
which aims both to develop an appropriate methodology for evaluating these programs and to obtain
data to improve their measures. In Lithuania, reading promotion programmes have been organised
since 2006, but systematic evaluation of their results and impact is not carried out. Thus, there is no
data on whether these programs achieve their goal or what their results and impact are. The purpose
of this article is to discuss the peculiarities of the evaluation of reading promotion programs, to present
the conceptual model of their evaluation and to discuss the results of the research of the reading promotion project “Summer with a Book”. “Summer with a book” is the most popular project of
reading promotion in Lithuania that attracts the largest number of participants and can have a
significant impact on the popularity of reading in general. During the research, a qualitative analysis
of the documents of the project, a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the books read during the
project, and a quantitative survey of the participants were carried out. Documents were analysed in
order to evaluate the relevance of the project, defining the relevance as links between the defined
objectives and the existing reading problems to be solved by the project. The analysis showed that
the description of the reading situation in Lithuania presented in the reading promotion programme
emphasises the decrease in both the number of readers and the quality of reading. “Summer with a
book”, however, is aimed only at increasing the number of people reading, without raising objectives
related to the quality of reading. This conclusion is also confirmed by the quantitative and qualitative
analysis of the titles of the books read and registered during the project. The survey of “Summer with
a book” participants was conducted in order to evaluate the effectiveness of this measure defining
effectiveness as a comparison of actual and planned outputs, results, and impacts. The “Summer with
a book” is presented in the Ministry’s programme as a project designated for non-reading and lowreading members of society. However, the survey showed that the project is more popular among
people who read a lot than among those who read little or not at all.promotion project “Summer with a Book”. “Summer with a book” is the most popular project of
reading promotion in Lithuania that attracts the largest number of participants and can have a
significant impact on the popularity of reading in general. During the research, a qualitative analysis
of the documents of the project, a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the books read during the
project, and a quantitative survey of the participants were carried out. Documents were analysed in
order to evaluate the relevance of the project, defining the relevance as links between the defined
objectives and the existing reading problems to be solved by the project. The analysis showed that
the description of the reading situation in Lithuania presented in the reading promotion programme
emphasises the decrease in both the number of readers and the quality of reading. “Summer with a
book”, however, is aimed only at increasing the number of people reading, without raising objectives
related to the quality of reading. This conclusion is also confirmed by the quantitative and qualitative
analysis of the titles of the books read and registered during the project. The survey of “Summer with
a book” participants was conducted in order to evaluate the effectiveness of this measure defining
effectiveness as a comparison of actual and planned outputs, results, and impacts. The “Summer with
a book” is presented in the Ministry’s programme as a project designated for non-reading and lowreading members of society. However, the survey showed that the project is more popular among
people who read a lot than among those who read little or not at all.