Reading motivation in Chinese elementary grade students

Abstract

Purpose: This paper reported a study examining the contribution of affective factors in Chinese children’s reading comprehension. Method: Participants in the study were 379 students in Grade 3, Grade 4 and Grade 5 in Hong Kong. They were administered a word reading fluency task, a working memory task, an academic self-regulation questionnaire on reading motivation with four subscales (external regulation, introjected regulation (i.e., a behavior is performed to avoid guilt or to attain ego enhancements), identified regulation (i.e., a behavior is performed because it is perceived as personally important), and intrinsic motivation), and a reading comprehension task. Results: Repeated measures analysis results showed that the interaction effect between Grade and the types of reading motivation was not significant. Across grades, the rating on identified regulation was significantly higher than that of external regulation and intrinsic regulation, which in turn were significantly higher than that on introjected regulation. Multiple regression analysis results showed that reading motivation measures accounted for a significant amount of unique variance (8%) in reading comprehension after controlling for age, Raven’s scores, word reading fluency and working memory. Identified regulation was a positive predictor of reading comprehension, while introjected regulation was a negative predictor of reading comprehension. The marginally significant interaction between identified regulation and grade suggested that the contribution of identified regulation to reading comprehension was weaker in Grade 5 compared to that in Grades 3 and 4. Conclusions: These findings underscored the importance of reading motivation in Chinese reading comprehension among elementary grade students.