The Impact of Teaching Cultural Materials on Reading Motivation and Attitude of Iranian Upper-Intermediate EFL Learners

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of teaching cultural materials on reading motivation and reading attitude across two genders. To fulfill this objective, 150 upper-intermediate male (n = 75) and female (n = 75) EFL learners were selected and randomly divided into three equal groups. Then, a reading motivation pretest was carried out to check the participants’ reading motivation at the beginning of the course. As the treatment, some reading passages related to American and English cultures (for group A), Persian culture (for group B), and culture free-materials (for group C) were taught. After the treatment, a posttest of reading motivation and a reading attitude questionnaire were executed. The outcomes indicated that teaching materials with cultural content in them promoted the Iranian EFL learners’ reading motivation as checked by the Motivation for Reading Questionnaire (MRQ) (Wigfield & Guthrie, 1997). Moreover, as measured by a 25-item attitude questionnaire adapted from Liu’s (2015) scale, it was discovered that students had a positive attitude toward using such cultural materials in their reading. Lastly, the results demonstrated that female participants performed better than the male ones on reading motivation posttest. In light of the findings, a number of conclusions are drawn and several implications are put forward.