Investigating EFL learners’ situational and perceived interest in reading different types of texts

Abstract

This paper reports a classroom-based empirical study that aimed to establish the level of situational and perceived interest generated by EFL learners while reading three types of texts (General Comprehension, Culture Focus and Narrative texts). Situational interest was defined as comprising five Sources of Interest, that is Text Cohesion, Prior Knowledge, Engagement, Ease of Recollection, and Emotiveness. The analysis of the students’ ratings of the questionnaire statements for the particular texts has revealed the main effect of Text Type, with the highest level of the students’ interest gained for Narrative texts. The level of interest was also dependent on Sources of Interest, with the highest mean gained for Cohesion. Narrative was the type of text perceived by the students as the most interesting of the three they worked with. The results of the study showed that the role of situational and perceived interest in reading different text types needs to be adequately approached by FL specialists as a vital factor in reading and learning tasks.