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

Abstract

AbstractThis 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.