Context-Specific Motivations to Read for Adolescent Struggling Readers: Does the Motivation for Reading Questionnaire Tell the Full Story?

Abstract

Commonly used literacy motivation assessments do not specifically explore literacy motivation in school. These context-general assessments may be problematic for struggling adolescent readers, as qualitative research documents that these adolescents exhibit different levels of cross-context motivation. The present study explores whether an in-school measure predicts additional variance in reading performance beyond a non-context-specific measure. One hundred and fifteen fifth graders were administered the Motivation for Reading Questionnaire, an in-school reading motivation daily log, a demographic survey, and standardized reading assessments. Findings indicate that the in-school reading motivation measure predicted performance for struggling readers and the non-context-specific measure did not.

Notes

1. Recent exceptions to these context-neutral assessments include instruments by Moje et al. (2008) and Coddington (2009). These measures explore reading motivation for older students in specific content areas. However, item content in both researcher-developed measures does not attend to daily motivations, with students amalgamating their motivations across a month or across indeterminate circumstances.