Story World Absorption Scale
The Story World Absorption Scale (SWAS) is a self-report instrument that allows you to capture readers’ sense of feeling lost in a story world. It consist of 18 statements divided into four dimensions: Attention, Emotional Engagement, Mental Imagery and Transportation. Each statement is usually presented with a 7 point rating scale ranging from completely disagree to completely agree and participants are asked to indicate in how far the statement is true for their reading experience. The scale has been validated across multiple studies, both experimental studies as well as surveys (in experiments the participants usually have to read a predetermined short story or excerpt of a novel, whereas in surveys we usually ask participants to think of a book or story they have read in the past year that was meaningful, memorable or engaging). The scale was translated and tested in Dutch, German and English by my colleagues and I, but it is also available in other languages based on the work of researchers outside of the research group that originally helped to develop the instrument.
On this page you can find links to the paper in which the scale was originally developed, as well as a links to the different language versions of the instrument. The scale is free to use by any researcher with proper citation:
Kuijpers, M. M., Hakemulder, F., Tan, E. S. H., & Doicaru, M. M. (2014). Exploring absorbing reading experiences. Developing and validating a self-report scale to measure story world absorption. Scientific Study of Literature, 4(1), 89–122.
The research on Story World Absorption continues, as do my efforts to better understand and improve on this instrument.
Related papers
Kuijpers, M. M. (2021). Exploring the dimensional relationships of story world absorption. A commentary on the role of attention during absorbed reading. Scientific Study of Literature, 11(2), 266-281.
| Open Access Preprint | DOI | Data Sets | Analysis Scripts |
Kuijpers, M. M., Hakemulder, F., Tan, E. S. H., & Doicaru, M. M. (2014). Exploring absorbing reading experiences. Developing and validating a self-report scale to measure story world absorption. Scientific Study of Literature, 4(1), 89–122.
| Open Access Preprint | DOI | Instrument | Data Sets |