The Nature of Reading Motivation and Student Perceptions

1. The Nature of ReadingMotivationandStudentPerceptions SUKRAN SAYGI Department of BasicEnglish, Middle East TechnicalUniversity susaygi@metu.edu.tr

2. “Citizens of modern societies must be good readers to be successful. … The advent of computer and the Internet does nothing to change this fact about reading. If anything, electronic communication only increases the need for effective reading skills and the strategies as we cope with the large quantities of information made available to us” (Grabe, 2009: 5).

3. “Citizens of modern societies must be good readers to be successful. … The advent of computer and the Internet does nothing to change this fact about reading. If anything, electronic communication only increases the need for effective reading skillsand the strategies as we cope with the large quantities of informationmade available to us” (Grabe, 2009: 5). Inspirationforthestudy

5. a never ending enthusiasm to change things to reach European standards • a central university placement exam – washback • private and state universities • state and anatolian high schools (foreign language oriented) SomefactsaboutTurkey

7. The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), 2003 • by Organization for Economic Co-operation andDevelopment (OECD) • in 41 countries and Turkey • mathematics, science and reading tests Turkey has the second lowest performance in all tests among the OECD countries

8. The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), 2001 • the reading achievement of primary school fourth grade students: 449 Park, 2006: home literacy environments of the 25 participant countries • early home literacy activities, index of parents’ attitudes toward reading and number of books at home Turkey was in the lowest group

9. define the nature of motivation to read in Turkish (L1) and in English (L2) • to explore the relationship between the students’ motivations to read and their success in reading exams • to gainan insight as to the educational value students assign to reading motivation in the classroom dynamics Purpose of thestudy

10. Questionnaire Population and Setting preparatory school of a private university in Ankara, Turkey pre-intermediate (N = 172) upper-intermediate (N = 101) • Student interviewees students from the lower and upper third groups depending on percentile scores (N = 8) Methodology

11. Instruments I . The questionnaire was adapted from Wang & Guthrie’s Motivations for Reading Questionnaire (2004) and Yamashita’s (2007) reading attitude questionnaire. II. semi-structured face-to-face interviews • the formation of their motivation to read • the effect of contextual surroundings (such as teacher, materials) on their motivation • their expectations about their future education in their departments

12. Nature of ReadingMotivation (L1 and L2) • PrincipalComponentAnalysis • Correlationsbetween L1 ReadingMotivatonConstructsand L2 ReadingMotivationConstructs Results & DiscussionQuantitative

13. Principal Component Analysis

14. CorrelationAnalyses ** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). * Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

16. Results Quantitative • the relationship between motivation to read and success in reading • Hierarchical Regression Analyses

22. I. Personal Factors • value students put on reading • interest levels • background II. Institutional Factors • syllabus • coursebook • teacher • exams Results & DiscusiionQualitative

23. Barr & Dreeben, 1983

24. Reading motivation is a COURSE BOOK thing: • “one size fits all mentality” • the course book’s syllabus is the syllabus • students like the reading texts in the course book because they are short and easy --- they are not accustomed to dealing with long texts due to the education system

25. the teacher - theonly motivator - higher levels of student motivation when they see that the teacher care about their progress Classroom Conditions

26. having the freedom to choose motivates students to become engaged in their reading • students are more interested in soft texts than pen-and-paper texts • more technology in class What to do, then?

27. syllabus – needs analyis • institutionalized syllabus • course book selection beyond the teacher’s control …

28. Grabe, W. (2009). Reading in a second language: Moving from theory to practice. New York: Cambridge University Press. • Mendi, H.B. (2009). The relationship between reading strategies, motivation and reading test performance in foreign language learning. Unpublished master’s thesis, Marmara University, Istanbul, Turkey. • Park, H. (2008). Home literacy environments and children’s reading performance: A comparative study of 25 countries. Educational Research and Evaluation, 14 (6), 489-505. • Wang, J. H. & Guthrie, J. T. (2004) Modeling the Effects of Intrinsic Motivation, Extrinsic Motivation, Amount of Reading, and Past Reading Achievement on Text Comprehension between U.S. and Chinese students. Reading Research Quarterly, 39, (2) pp. 162-186. • Yamashita, J. (2002). Influence of L1 reading on L2 reading: different perspectives from the process and product of reading. Studies in Language and Culture, 23 (2), 271-283. • Yamashita, J. (2007). The relationship of reading attitudes between L1 and L2: An investigation of adult EFL learners in Japan. TESOL Quarterly, 41 (1), 81-105. References

29. for further information or your comments susaygi@metu.edu.tr THANK YOU …