Development and validation of the reading motivation questionnaire in an English as a foreign language context

Abstract

This paper presents the development and validation of the reading motivation questionnaire in an English as a foreign language context (RMQ-EFL) with Chinese secondary students. Data were collected from a sample of 293 secondary students in grades 10-11. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses resulted in determination of five factors (i.e., reading efficacy, reading enjoyment, recognition, involvement, and compliance) with a strong psychometric basis. The significant correlations between these five RMQ-EFL factors and students' learning strategies in reading and between the five RMQ-EFL factors and students' English learning achievements further confirmed the concurrent and predictive validity of the RMQ-EFL. In addition, this study found that there were no significant differences in students' EFL reading motivation across gender and grade levels. The RMQ-EFL can be used both as an evaluation tool for teachers to assess students' EFL reading motivation, and as a research tool for researchers to explore the relationships between students' English reading motivation and their English reading behavior and performance or to assess the effectiveness of targeted reading motivation interventions.

Reading motivation, self-regulated reading strategies and English vocabulary knowledge: Which most predicted students’ English reading comprehension?

“…We used Wang and Gan (2021) RMQ-EFL to investigate students’ English reading motivation. The questionnaire included 22 items (seven items for reading efficacy, six items for reading enjoyment, three items for recognition, three items for involvement, and three items for compliance).…”

“…Each item was scored on a 4-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (very different from me) to 4 (a lot like me). Wang and Gan (2021) questionnaire was used in this study for three reasons. First, this questionnaire had its theoretical origin in Wigfield and Guthrie's (1997) and Wang and Guthrie's (2004) reading motivational constructs.…”

“…Compared with L1 reading motivation, studies on the dimensions of L2 reading motivation are scant. Most of these studies have been conducted in Asia (e.g., Mori, 2002 ; Takase, 2007 ; Kim, 2011 ; Lin et al, 2012 ; Wang and Gan, 2021 ). While these researchers have identified different dimensions of L2 reading motivation in relation to their research contexts, they tend to agree that intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and reading efficacy are the three most important types of reading motivation.…”

“…While these researchers have identified different dimensions of L2 reading motivation in relation to their research contexts, they tend to agree that intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and reading efficacy are the three most important types of reading motivation. With regard to mainland Chinese students’ English reading motivation, Wang and Gan (2021) have developed a reading motivation questionnaire in an English as a foreign language context (RMQ-EFL) which includes five dimensions, namely, reading efficacy, reading enjoyment, reading recognition, reading involvement, and reading compliance. The five dimensions of RMQ-EFL have their theoretical basis in the reading motivational constructs proposed by Wigfield and Guthrie (1997) , Wang and Guthrie (2004) , and Mori (2002) .…”

Construct-Oriented or Goal-Motivated? Interpreting Test Preparation of a High-Stakes Writing Test From the Perspective of Expectancy-Value Theory

“…Most of research has been carried out in different academic achievement and learning contexts, such as science subjects (e.g., Guo et al, 2017 ), mathematics (e.g., Brisson et al, 2017 ), and language learning (e.g., MacIntyre and Blackie, 2012 ). The last decade has witnessed the growing interest on motivation and self-regulated learning in English as a foreign language (EFL) context (e.g., Liem et al, 2008 ; Kim et al, 2015 ; Bai and Wang, 2020 ; Gan, 2020 ; Wang and Gan, 2021 ). In EFL writing, researchers have explored the nexus of self-efficacy and conceptualized writing self-efficacy ( Teng and Zhang, 2016 ; Teng et al, 2018 ; Teng, 2021 ).…”