Reading motivation in elementary school students

• Main Authors: Sonja Pečjak, Nataša Bucik
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Slovenian Psychologists' Association 2005-02-01
• Series: Psihološka Obzorja
• Subjects: reading motivation; students; age differences; human sex differences; reading achievement
• Online Access: http://psiholoska-obzorja.si/arhiv_clanki/2004_4/pecjak_bucik.pdf

Reading motivation is one of the crucial factors of reading and consequently also learning efficiency of students. The purpose of the contribution is to establish the connection between dimensions of reading motivation and reading achievement in elementary school students. Participating in the study were 1073 third-grade and 1282 seventh-grade students. We used the questionnaire of reading motivation which consists of two factors: the reading competence factor and the interest and perceived reading importance factor. The findings of the study are the following: third-graders are more competent and more interested in reading compared to seventh-graders. The same is true for girls in both educational levels. Reading competence , interest and perceived reading importance reflect also in the actual reading behaviour of students – students who are more competent and more interested in reading read more frequently, for longer periods and more often autonomously decide to read compared to their less motivated peers. Higher reading motivation has implications also for higher reading efficiency. Namely, good readers are more competent, show higher interest and perceive reading as more important compared to average and bad readers.