Motivation to Read in EFL College Classrooms

Motivation to Read in EFL College Classrooms

  This study explored factors that motivate Korean college students to read English. It furthermore examined the association between reading motivation and reading proficiency and the effects of gender and preferred reading styles on motivation. A total of 204 students from 7 EFL intact reading classes participated. Motivation was measured by the self-report questionnaire developed based on L1 reading motivation (Wigfield & Guthrie, 1995, 1997) and L2 reading motivation work done by Mori (2002) and Takase (2007). The study identified five factors in students" motivation: extrinsic motivation, importance of reading, intrinsic motivation, avoidance of reading, and self-efficacy of reading. Students" strongest motivational component was their perception of usefulness or importance of English reading. Intrinsic motivation was found to be most strongly related to self-assessed English reading proficiency, while avoidance of reading was significantly and negatively associated with reading ability. Some components of female students" reading motivation were stronger and more positive than males". Furthermore, students" motivation to read differed in terms of their preferred reading style, with extensive readers showing higher scores on intrinsic and efficacy factors. These results are in consistent with the claim concerning learning benefits of extensive reading to L2 readers.