Table 2.
Proportion of Author Names Correct andIRT-EstimatedParameters: a-parameter (discrimination), b-parameter (difficulty) and Standard Errors
| Serial Position | Author Name | Percent Selected | a-parameter | b-parameter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ernest Hemingway | 92.2 | 1.97 (0.24) | −1.88 (0.15) |
| 2 | F. Scott Fitzgerald | 89.8 | 1.49 (0.18) | −1.94 (0.17) |
| 3 | Stephen King | 83.7 | 1.08 (0.13) | −1.83 (0.18) |
| 4 | T. S. Elliot a | 80.4 | 1.51 (0.15) | −1.29 (0.11) |
| 5 | J. R. R. Tolkien | 77.6 | 1.87 (0.18) | −1.03 (0.08) |
| 6 | George Orwell | 72.9 | 1.55 (0.14) | −0.91 (0.08) |
| 7 | Maya Angelou | 66.3 | 0.72 (0.09) | −1.05 (0.15) |
| 8 | William Faulkner | 62.8 | 1.55 (0.13) | −0.49 (0.06) |
| 9 | E. B. White | 55.3 | 0.88 (0.09) | −0.29 (0.09) |
| 10 | Harper Lee | 53.0 | 0.95 (0.09) | −0.16 (0.08) |
| 11 | Tom Clancy | 51.9 | 1.12 (0.10) | −0.10 (0.07) |
| 12 | J. D. Salinger | 47.2 | 1.53 (0.13) | 0.09 (0.06) |
| 13 | James Patterson | 47.1 | 0.66 (0.08) | 0.18 (0.10) |
| 14 | Virginia Woolf | 46.7 | 1.20 (0.11) | 0.13 (0.06) |
| 15 | John Grisham | 43.2 | 1.40 (0.12) | 0.25 (0.06) |
| 16 | Ray Bradbury | 37.7 | 1.20 (0.10) | 0.52 (0.07) |
| 17 | Thomas Wolfe | 37.3 | 0.66 (0.08) | 0.86 (0.14) |
| 18 | Jack London | 36.5 | 1.12 (0.10) | 0.61 (0.08) |
| 19 | Toni Morrison | 35.1 | 0.59 (0.08) | 1.12 (0.17) |
| 20 | Ayn Rand | 35.1 | 1.47 (0.12) | 0.57 (0.06) |
| 21 | John Irving* | 32.5 | 0.74 (0.10) | 1.09 (0.17) |
| 22 | James Joyce | 30.0 | 1.39 (0.12) | 0.81 (0.07) |
| 23 | Kurt Vonnegut | 27.1 | 1.97 (0.17) | 0.79 (0.06) |
| 24 | Samuel Beckett | 26.4 | 0.75 (0.09) | 1.52 (0.18) |
| 25 | Margaret Atwood | 22.4 | 0.99 (0.10) | 1.48 (0.14) |
| 26 | Danielle Steel | 20.7 | 0.94 (0.10) | 1.66 (0.16) |
| 27 | Ralph Ellison | 19.7 | 0.75 (0.09) | 2.08 (0.24) |
| 28 | Gabriel Garcia Marquez | 18.3 | 1.17 (0.12) | 1.59 (0.13) |
| 29 | Alice Walker* | 16.7 | 0.77 (0.12) | 2.32 (0.33) |
| 30 | Isabel Allende | 14.4 | 0.98 (0.11) | 2.12 (0.20) |
| 31 | Isaac Asimov | 13.5 | 1.56 (0.15) | 1.64 (0.11) |
| 32 | T. C. Boyle* | 13.1 | 0.30 (0.11) | 6.44 (2.44) |
| 33 | Vladimir Nabokov | 12.2 | 1.36 (0.14) | 1.89 (0.14) |
| 34 | Joyce Carol Oates | 11.9 | 1.21 (0.13) | 2.06 (0.17) |
| 35 | Margaret Mitchell* | 11.3 | 0.86 (0.13) | 2.73 (0.39) |
| 36 | Clive Cussler | 10.9 | 1.07 (0.13) | 2.35 (0.22) |
| 37 | Robert Ludlum | 8.6 | 1.22 (0.14) | 2.4 (0.21) |
| 38 | Salman Rushdie | 7.4 | 1.71 (0.19) | 2.09 (0.14) |
| 39 | Willa Cather | 7.0 | 1.53 (0.17) | 2.28 (0.17) |
| 40 | Nora Ephron | 6.6 | 1.26 (0.16) | 2.61 (0.24) |
| 41 | Jackie Collins* | 6.1 | 0.58 (0.17) | 4.93 (1.35) |
| 42 | Sue Grafton | 5.1 | 1.10 (0.16) | 3.13 (0.35) |
| 43 | Kazuo Ishiguro | 4.8 | 1.18 (0.17) | 3.05 (0.32) |
| 44 | Anne McCaffrey | 4.8 | 1.13 (0.16) | 3.15 (0.35) |
| 45 | Paul Theroux* | 4.8 | 0.74 (0.20) | 4.36 (1.08) |
| 46 | Judith Krantz | 4.7 | 1.05 (0.16) | 3.33 (0.40) |
| 47 | Thomas Pynchon | 3.6 | 2.52 (0.39) | 2.28 (0.14) |
| 48 | James Michener | 3.5 | 1.18 (0.19) | 3.38 (0.40) |
| 49 | Ann Beattie* | 2.6 | 0.59 (0.26) | 6.49 (2.72) |
| 50 | Michael Ondaatje | 2.6 | 1.14 (0.20) | 3.75 (0.51) |
| 51 | Nelson Demilleb | 2.4 | 1.12 (0.21) | 3.87 (0.56) |
| 52 | Umberto Eco | 2.3 | 1.57 (0.25) | 3.15 (0.31) |
| 53 | Raymond Chandler | 2.2 | 1.45 (0.24) | 3.34 (0.37) |
| 54 | Dick Francis* | 2.0 | 0.30 (0.30) | 13.09 (12.75) |
| 55 | Sidney Sheldon* | 1.9 | 0.57 (0.33) | 7.18 (3.87) |
| 56 | Saul Bellow | 1.8 | 2.39 (0.39) | 2.77 (0.20) |
| 57 | James Clavell* | 1.8 | 0.77 (0.35) | 5.62 (2.28) |
| 58 | Jonathan Kellerman* | 1.8 | 1.03 (0.29) | 4.42 (1.17) |
| 59 | Wally Lamb* | 1.6 | 1.36 (0.30) | 3.74 (0.63) |
| 60 | Jane Smiley | 1.4 | 0.30 (0.27) | 14.34 (12.76) |
| 61 | Jean M. Auel* | 1.0 | 0.29 (0.36) | 16.00 (20.28) |
| 62 | Brian Herbert* | 0.6 | 0.15 (0.54) | 34.44 (124.95) |
| 63 | Tony Hillerman* | 0.4 | 1.00 (0.70) | 6.06 (3.98) |
| 64 | Herman Wouk | 0.4 | 1.99 (0.49) | 3.91 (0.52) |
| 65 | Bernard Malamud | 0.3 | 1.80 (0.53) | 4.28 (0.74) |
Note.
*
Items excluded from 50-item IRT analyses, but 65-item IRT parameters are presented for comparison.
a
Minor misspelling in ART version; should read 'T. S. Eliot.'
b
Minor misspelling in ART version, should read 'Nelson DeMille.'