[judy-cummings Posts: 2 Status: Offline I love kids' books!]

Does anyone know of hard data that shows the impact of author visits on students? I find lots of anecdotal information, but I'm looking for studies/large scale surveys, something researched based.

[RebeccaL-G Posts: 1,136 Status: Offline RA SCBWI Cen-Cal WWW]

Alexis O'Neill has conducted this research.  You can find some info here http://schoolvisitexperts.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/The-Value-of-an-Author-Visit.pdf  and her contact info is there to write and ask her about actual data.

[judy-cummings Posts: 2 Status: Offline I love kids' books!]

Thanks, Rebecca. I have seen this from Alexis O'Neill before, but it really doesn't contain any concrete data. O'Neill admits that getting such data would be a challenge. I just wondered if anyone had seen anything in an educational journal or academic setting somewhere. I'm proposing a panel at a conference of school librarians/administrators/teachers and I wanted some quantifiable data about the value of author visits.

[Debbie Vilardi Posts: 5,918 Status: Offline Language is so cool! WWW]

I'd think that there is no way to control for variables. You'd have to control for age of students, socioeconomic status, length of visit, availability of books, familiarity of the author before and after the visit ( a bestselling author vs. someone  new) and more. For many visits, the local libraries and bookstores help promote. So how would you know what effect was from the promotion and what effect was from the visit? I can't see how a good scientific study could be done.

[RebeccaL-G Posts: 1,136 Status: Offline RA SCBWI Cen-Cal WWW]

Judy,  I would recommend contacting Alexis directly.  I know she's worked with a colleague to set up pre and post interviews with students in conjunction with author visits and gathered data on (I think) their attitude toward writing and reading pre and post visit.  She's also conducted surveys with people who arranged school visits to gather data about the effect on students.