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Relations between children's reading motivation, activity and performance at the end of primary school
Author(s) -
Kavanagh Lauren
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of research in reading
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.077
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1467-9817
pISSN - 0141-0423
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9817.12284
Subject(s) - psychology , competence (human resources) , reading (process) , intrinsic motivation , reading motivation , developmental psychology , socioeconomic status , structural equation modeling , social psychology , linguistics , population , philosophy , statistics , demography , mathematics , sociology
Background There is increasing recognition of the contribution of affective factors such as motivation to the development of reading competence. Reading activity is theorised to mediate associations between motivation and achievement, but this has been tested empirically only rarely. Method This study employed structural equation modelling to test a hypothesised model of relations between the reading self‐concept, intrinsic motivation, activity and achievement of a sample of 4,067 grade 6 students in Ireland and to explore whether the relations were moderated by gender or socioeconomic status (SES). Results Intrinsic motivation and self‐concept were significantly associated with reading activity, which, in turn, significantly predicted reading achievement. Girls had higher intrinsic motivation and reading activity than boys, but there was no gender difference in reading self‐concept. High‐SES students had higher reading self‐concept, intrinsic motivation and activity than low‐SES and medium‐SES students. The strength of the associations among the constructs under study did not vary by gender or SES. Conclusions Findings suggest that efforts aimed at increasing students' intrinsic reading motivation may lead to increased reading activity and reading competence, irrespective of gender or SES.