Motivational Aspects of Students’ Amount of Reading and Affective Reading Experiences in a School Context: A Large-Scale Study of Grades 6 and 9

Abstract

As leisure-time reading among adolescents declines in the western world, stakeholders try to increase students’ motivation for school-related reading. We examine the relationship of students’ autonomous and controlled reading motivation with their amount and experiences of school-related reading in four school subjects, controlling for students’ attitudes toward the school subjects and general attitudes toward reading. Questionnaire data were collected from 3308 students in Grades 6 and 9 at 144 schools in Sweden. Multiple linear regression indicates that students’ attitudes toward the subject are more important predictors of reading amount than their reading motivation. Motivation type was primarily related to students’ affective experiences of the reading, and only weakly related to their amount of school-related reading. Results suggest that the relationship between motivation and school-related reading differ from voluntary leisure-time reading. The study thus complements previous research which primarily has focused on the role of students’ motivation for their amount of leisure-time reading.