[RELC 35.

1 (2004) 63-81]
ISSN 0033-6882

SIGNIFICANT MOTIVATIONAL PREDICTORS OF THE AMOUNT OF

READING BY EFL LEARNERS IN JAPAN
Setsuko Mori
Kinki University, Japan,
squiddly@leto.eonet.ne.jp

ABSTRACT
Although there is extensive research into what constitutes second language
learning motivation and how it works, most of the existing work is carried
out in ESL environments, and is mainly concerned with motivation to
communicate using the target language. However, in EFL environments
such as Japan, students have quite limited contact with target language
communities, and consequently need to rely largely on written form of
input. Thus, this study attempted to investigate the relationship between
how students motivation/attitudes toward reading in English and a specic
reading task, and how much they read outside of class. The results of the
study imply that the following two motivational constructs were signicant
predictors of the amount of reading: (1) a factor indicative of students
study habits, and (2) a factor of task-specic motivation indicative of
students lack of intrinsic value of stories. Surprisingly, neither sub-factors
of reading motivation nor prociency scores were found to be signicant
predictors.

Introduction
Since many researchers acknowledge that motivation can be one of the
key predictors of success in second/foreign language learning, a large
quantity of research has been carried out in order to investigate what constitutes motivation and how it functions. Although there is a discrepancy
among researchers regarding exactly what encompasses motivation,
existing research in motivation suggest that motivation is a multi-faceted,
complex construct comprised of various sub-constructs. Also recognizing
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Regional Language Centre Journal 35.1 (2004)

the importance of motivation in language learning and the multi-dimensionality of motivation, the present study attempted to investigate what
motivational sub-constructs can predict a certain learning behaviour: how
some motivational constructs are related to how much students read in
English outside of the class. The decision to specically examine the
relationship between motivation and reading behaviour was made due to
the fact that little research of such nature has been done especially in SLA.
In researching motivation for second language learning, as a matter of
fact, there seems to be a trend that researchers focus mostly on students
motivation to interact or communicate with target language speakers (e.g.
Clement 1980, 1986; Gardner and MacIntyre 1992, 1993; Gardner, Tremblay and Masgoret 1997; MacIntyre, Clement, Drnyei and Noels 1998;
Drnyei 1996, 1998; Drnyei and Otto 1998) and neglect the issue of
domain-specicity in motivation. One of the most frequently cited models
on this line of research is probably the socio-psychological oriented work
proposed by Gardner and his associates (e.g. Gardner 1985, 1988, 1996;
Gardner and Lambert 1959; Gardner and Smythe 1975; Gliksman,
Gardner and Smythe 1982; Gardner and MacIntyre 1991, 1993). Realizing
the importance of socio-psychological aspects of second language acquisition, Gardners Socio-Educational Model of language learning includes
Integrative Motivation as a key construct, and attempts to measure it
together with other motivational constructs such as Instrumental Orientation using a standardized motivation assessment instrument called the
Attitude/Motivation Test Battery (AMTB). The results of Gardner and his
associates work repeatedly suggest a strong correlation between integrative motivation and achievement (Gardner 1979, 1985, 1988; Gardner and
Lambert 1959), and between integrative motivation and motivational
behaviour (Gardner 1985; Gliksman, Gardner and Smythe 1982).
Although no one seems to argue against the importance of socio-psychological aspects of motivation in language learning, a number of
criticisms have been raised against Gardners socio-psychological
approach to motivation. Together with criticism that the denition of
integrative motivation is ambiguous (e.g. Crookes and Schmidt 1991),
another criticism has been raised with reference to the degree to which
emphasis has been placed on integrative motivation in Gardners socioeducational model. As summarized in Au (1988) as the Integrative Motive
Hypothesis, Gardner and his associates (Gardner 1979, 1985, 1988;
Gardner and Lambert 1959) consistently found the signicant role
Integrative Motivation plays in second language. However, many studies

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MORI Significant Motivational Predictors

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(Au 1988; Crookes and Schmidt 1991; Drnyei 1990; Ely 1986; Oller
1981) carried out in different contexts especially in EFL contexts found
contradictory results.
Drnyei (1990), for instance, developed a motivational questionnaire in
order to investigate the components of motivation in foreign-language
learning, assuming that the parameters created for second-language
learning contexts are not directly applicable. The results of the study
indicated that Integrative Motivation was weaker than Instrumental Motivation for predicting prociency. Schmidt, Boraie and Kassabgy (1996)
also argued in their study of Egyptian learners of English that Gardners
model cannot be assumed appropriate to an EFL context where learners
have limited interaction with the target language. In an EFL context where
this study was carried out, it could be assumed that the concept of
Integrativeness or Integrative Orientation may be a weaker predictor of
success in language learning since students in such a context rarely have
chance to integrate themselves into the target society. For this reason, and
also reected in recent calls for incorporating mainstream psychological
models in SLA (e.g. Drnyei 1994; Crookes and Schmidt 1991; Oxford
and Shearin 1994, 1996), instead of Gardners Socio-Educational Model,
the present paper places its general theoretical basis on Eccles and
Wigelds expectancy-value theory (1995).
The expectancy-value theory is a well-acknowledged cognitive psychological theory of motivation, and is comprised of two components:
expectancy of success in a given task and the value the individual
associates with success in that task. Expectancy in this model refers to
students expectancy for success, which can be in turn predicted by their
task-specic self-concept and perceptions of task difculty. Task-specic
self-concept represents individuals expectation of their ability to do a
domain-specic task. As to the value the individual associates with
success in that task, Eccles and Wigeld (1995) hypothesize that such
value consists of four components: Attainment Value, Intrinsic Value,
Extrinsic Utility Value and Cost. Attainment Value is an equivalent of the
individuals perception of importance of success in a given task, which is
consciously determined by the individual with reference to their
perception of how signicant a task is to their self-schema or identity.
Intrinsic Value refers to enjoyment that task engagement brings about
whereas Extrinsic Utility Value refers to the usefulness of the task in terms
of their future goals. The last component, Cost, is dened as perceived
negative consequences of engaging in the task, which include not only the

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Regional Language Centre Journal 35.1 (2004)

effort required for the task but also perceived emotional states such as
anxiety.
The results of research based on this expectancy-value theory (Eccles
1983; Meece, Wigeld and Eccles 1990; Wigeld 1994; Wigeld and
Eccles 1992) imply expectancy beliefs are signicant predictors of actual
achievement and performance whereas value beliefs are better predictors
than expectancy beliefs when it comes to choice behaviour. Considering
that the present study concerns students choice behaviour, that is the
amount students read, but not their achievement, its emphasis was placed
on the value component of motivation rather than expectancy beliefs.
Another issue dealt with in this paper also reects the recent movement
toward a more pragmatic, education-centered approach to motivation
research (Drnyei 1998: 125), and the call for more task, and situationspecic motivation (Crookes and Schmidt 1991; Drnyei 1994b, 1996).
Drnyei (1994b, 1996) himself proposed a more comprehensive, multidimensional model which includes three levels of motivation: language
level, learner level and learning situation level. Although the rst two
levels are concerned with components of motivation often appearing in
many general models of motivation, the last level is concerned with more
course-specic, teacher-specic, and group-specic aspects of motivation.
Based on the belief that more empirical research along this line is needed,
the present paper included a component of task-specic motivation
together with general language motivation and reading motivation in order
to investigate how students motivation to work on a specic reading task
may predict their behaviour on that task.
To summarize, the present study strove to achieve the following goals:
(1) to identify the components of English learning motivation, English
reading motivation, task-specic motivation for a sample of university
EFL learners in Japan, and (2) to identify relationships between the
identied components of motivation and the amount of extensive reading
students do outside of class.
Method
Participants
The participants (N=100) in this experiment were rst year non-English
major students at a four year womens university in Japan. All of the
participants were in intact groups whose instructor was the researcher.
Although the participants were separated into four classes, all were in

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MORI Significant Motivational Predictors

67

intermediate sections of the required English reading/listening course in

the institution on the basis of their placement test scores at the beginning
of the school year. The placement test was originally created by the
institution. Although there was a total of 135 students in the four classes,
omitting those who missed experiment day(s) left a total number of 100
participants.


Procedures
On the rst week of the semester, a SLEP test was administered to
measure students reading prociency. The SLEP test was chosen since
the level of the test was assumed more suitable than other standardized
tests such as TOEIC and TOEFL for this sample of students.
In order to obtain information regarding students motivation, a questionnaire was created and administered in Japanese. Although the questionnaire was designed drawing upon some published motivational/attitude
scales (Gardner 1985; Koizumi and Matsuo 1993; Schmidt et al. 1996),
the majority of the questions were created based on observations of the
researcher and the results of a pilot study (Mori 1999) (See the Appendix
for details of this questionnaire). The questionnaire consisted of three
parts: part I pertaining to motivation/attitudes toward reading in English
(20 items), part II pertaining to general motivation/attitudes toward
learning English (30 items), and part III pertaining to motivation/attitudes
toward the assigned task (24 items). In the class session following the
SLEP test, questionnaire parts I and II were administered. These two parts
of the questionnaire were conducted early in the semester so that the
students would not have a particular English class or teacher in mind when
they answered the questions. The third part of the questionnaire concerning task-specic motivation questions was given on the seventh week
of the semester. The reason why the task-specic motivation questionnaire
was administered six weeks after the other parts of the questionnaire was
because questions in this part could not be answered unless the students
actually experienced the task for a long enough period of time. The
questionnaire was based on a 5-point scale that ranged from 1 (strongly
disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Reversed scores were assigned to
negatively termed items. The reliability of the three components (parts I, II
and III) of the questionnaire assessed using Cronbach alpha were .86, .77
and .84 respectively.
The Science Research Associates Multilevel Reading Laboratory
(hereinafter called SRA) was used to acquire information regarding the

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68

amount of extensive reading done by the students. On the second week of

the semester, the students were given some instructions regarding SRA.
Following the instructions in the same class, the students had an opportunity to practice reading with SRA, answering the questions, and lling
out the reading report. The students were then instructed to read SRA
reading materials, which were placed in the library, at their leisure.
Although the students were not assigned an appropriate level of difculty
at which to start reading, they were instructed to move on to the next level
when they got over 80% of the answers correct with three reading texts at
one level. Decisions regarding when, how much and how fast they read
were left up to them, although they were all aware that they had to hand in
the reading reports which would be 20% of their grades.
On the sixth week of the semester, the participants submitted their ongoing reading reports which consisted of a graph indicating how much
they had read, together with answer sheets. A week after they handed in
the report, as mentioned above, the task-specic motivational questionnaire was administered. On the fourteenth week of the semester, after
students read with SRA for approximately 11 weeks, they submitted their
nal reading reports. Then the total number of words each student had
read was calculated.
Results
Principal Components Analyses
Three principal components analyses were performed for three parts of the
questionnaire in order to determine interrelationship among the items. The
number of factors to be extracted was based on the following criteria:
1.
2.
3.

Minimum eigenvalues of 1.0

Each factor to contain individual items with a minimum loading
of .32 (Tabachnick and Fidell 1996)
Eigenvalues appear before the decrease of eigenvalues level off
on the scree plot.

In order to determine the best items for each of the motivational sub-components, any items which did not load high on any factors and/or items
which seemed to be rather confusing based on the previous administrations of the questionnaire were eliminated and the correlation matrix was
re-analyzed (See the Appendix for the deleted items).

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MORI Significant Motivational Predictors

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Part I: Motivation/Attitudes toward Reading in English

After varimax rotation, a three-factor solution was chosen, which accounted
for 58.73% of the total variance in the motivation subset of reading. Table
1 summarizes the results of a principal component analysis in terms of
factor loadings for part I. Since principal component analysis requires that
researchers label each factor themselves, by examining the items which
clustered together, the researcher assigned appropriate mnemonic names to
the identied factors for the convenience of later reference.
Table 1. Principal Component Analysis Summary for Part I: Factor Loadings

Factor
2

0.85
0.79
0.71
0.32
0.51

0.33

Factor 1: Intrinsic Value

1. Like reading in English
2. Fun to read in English
3. Interested in reading in English
15. Helping future career
20. Studying abroad
Factor 2: Attainment Value
11. Broadening view
12. Conducive to general education
13. Making me more knowledgeable
14. Getting good grades
16. Interested in learning various opinions
Factor 3: Negative Intrinsic Value in Novels
9. Like reading novels
10. Like reading newspapers
17. Want to be able to read novels
18. Want to be able to read newspapers
19. Impressed by people reading in English

0.78
0.84
0.84
-0.49
0.40

0.51
0.48
0.34
0.36
-

-0.58
-0.61
-0.76
-0.79
-0.63

Proportion of Variances

0.34

0.17

0.08

As can be seen, factor 1 received high loadings from nine items, seven of
which were concerned with the students interest in reading in English and
desire to read in English. Although the other two items imply some
reasons for studying reading in English (I am learning to read in English
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Regional Language Centre Journal 35.1 (2004)

because I think it will help my future career and I am learning to read

in English because I would like to study abroad in future), it could be
assumed that their interest in reading in English and desire to read in
English may be closely related with their desire to work using English
and/or to study abroad. Since it seems this factor corresponds to Intrinsic
Value in the expectancy-value theory (Eccles and Wigeld 1995), it was
labelled Intrinsic Value in Reading.
Six items loaded heavily on factor 2. All six items, but one, were concerned with the students perception of the importance of reading in
English in that it broadens their view, it is conducive to their general
education, it makes them a more knowledgeable person. This factor
seems to be closely associated with Attainment Value in the expectancyvalue theory. Thus, it was termed Attainment Value in Reading.
Five items loaded negatively on Factor 3, most of which concerned the
students interest or desire specically to read novels, newspapers and
magazines in English. Thus, they seem to be related to Intrinsic Value in
the expectancy-value theory. However, since they loaded negatively, it
should be referred to as Negative Intrinsic Value in Reading Novels.
Part II: Motivation toward Learning English
After varimax rotation, a four-factor solution was chosen, which accounted
for 54.44% of the total variance. Table 2 summarizes the results of a
principal component analysis computed for part II.
Table 2. Principal Components Analysis Summary for Part II: Factor Loadings

Factor 1: Attainment Value

4. English is an important subject
11. Broadening view
12. Conducive to general education
13. Making me more knowledgeable
15. Get good grades
Factor 2: Study Habits
21. Preplanned schedule
23. Work hard on homework
24. Procrastinate to do homework
25. Assignment as planned

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Factor
2

0.63
0.85
0.82
0.85
-0.47

0.37
-

-0.62
-0.62
0.75
-0.78

MORI Significant Motivational Predictors

27. Not work hard on assignments
28. Active participation in class
30. Not study hard for a test
Factor 3: Extrinsic Utility Value
6. Try hard in English class
16. Want to live overseas
17. Help travel overseas
18. Help understand novels
19. Help future career
20. Communicate with foreigners
Factor 4: Negative Intrinsic Value
1. Enjoy learning English
2. Learning English is a hobby
3. Like learning English
14. English as a required subject
Proportion of Variances

71

0.45
-0.39
0.35

-0.37
-

-0.83
-0.79
-0.81
0.64

0.26

0.12

0.09

0.1

0.46 -0.39
0.76
0.67
0.46 -0.40
0.61
0.61
-

Factor 1 was dened by ve items which were mostly associated with the
students perception of the importance of learning English. Therefore, it
was labelled Attainment Value of Studying English. However, the factor
also received negative loading from one item concerned with grade-related
motivation to study English. In other words, learners who scored high on
this factor perceived that learning English is important, but did not have
very strong grade-related motivation to study English. Factor 2 was predominated by eight items. Since all eight were associated with students
study habits, it was best termed as Study Habits.
Factor 3 obtained high loadings from seven items, ve of which were
associated with the students perception of the usefulness of studying
English, for instance, it helps them when they travel abroad, to communicate with foreigners, and when they pursue a career. This factor is
similar to the Extrinsic Utility Value in the expectancy value. Thus it was
referred to as Attainment Utility Value of Studying English.
Factor 4 was dened by six items which were mostly associated with
the students interest in studying English. However, since those items
loaded negatively on this factor, it can be considered as negative interest.
Thus, it was labelled as Negative Intrinsic Value of Studying English.

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Part III: Task-Specic Motivation

After varimax rotation, a four-factor solution was chosen, which accounted
for 56.83% of the total variance. Table 3 summarizes the results of a
principal component analysis computed for part III.
Table 3. Principal Component Analysis Summary for Part III: Factor Loadings
Factor

Factor 1: Intrinsic Value of SRA

1. Enjoy SRA
2. Like SRA
3. SRA is boring
9. Stories are interesting
10. Stories are easy to read
Factor 2: SRA Procedure
5. SRA is useful
17. Procedure is easy to understand
18. Easy to use SRA
23. Read at own leisure
Factor 3: Negative Intrinsic Value
4. Waste to read SRA
11. Stories are too short
12. Stories are boring
13. Stories are childish
Factor 4: Progress Indicator
8. Voluntarily read SRA
20. Easy to see progress
21. Good indicator of reading ability
22. Feel a sense of accomplishment
24. Pain to go to the library
Proportion of Variances

0.75
0.66
0.72
0.72
0.69

-0.51
-0.74
-0.68
-0.42

0.40

-0.35
-

-0.40
-0.63
-0.66
-0.78

0.59
0.56
0.76
0.75
0.46

0.42
-0.45
0.26

0.13

0.11 0.07

Eight items loaded on Factor 1. Since all of the items were concerned with
the students interest in SRA and its stories, it can be labelled as Intrinsic
Value of SRA. Six items loaded negatively on Factor 2, which were all
concerned with the students perception of the procedures, for example
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73

The procedures of SRA are easy to understand, It is easy to use SRA as

procedures are repetitious, and It is boring to use SRA as procedures are
repetitious. Therefore, it was best termed as Procedure.
All of the items loading heavily on Factor 3 involved the students
interest in the SRA stories themselves. However, since they loaded
negatively, it should be referred to as Negative Intrinsic Value of Stories.
Since most of the items loading on Factor 4 were related to the fact that
SRA materials are graded according to difculty, it was labelled as
Progress Indicator.
Multiple Regression Analyses
Following the administration of principal components analyses, multiple
regression analyses were computed based on factor scores obtained
from principal components analyses, with the amount of reading as the
dependent variable. Multiple regression analysis is a statistical procedure
used to test which independent variables and which combinations of
independent variables are the best predictors of performance on the
dependent variable.
In order to investigate which of the 11 factors chosen for parts I, II and
III plus reading prociency are signicant predictors of the amount of
reading, a forward stepwise multiple regression analysis was computed
(Table 4).
 The results of the multiple regression indicate that one of the general
motivation factors, namely Study Habits, and one of the task-specic
motivation-related factors, namely Intrinsic Value of Stories, contributed
signicantly to the prediction of variance (p<.05). The results also suggest
that reading prociency is not a signicant predictor of the amount of
reading.
Discussion
In comparing the structural sub-factors of the three principal components
of motivation, some similarities and differences should be noted. Although
the data need to be interpreted with caution, since each part of the
questionnaire consisted of a unique set of questions, Intrinsic Value
emerged as an independent factor of all three principal components of
motivation (they were labelled Intrinsic Value of Reading, Negative
Intrinsic Value of Reading Novels, Negative Intrinsic Value of Studying

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74

Table 4. Multiple Regression Analysis of Factors Pertaining to Motivation

Variables in Relation to the Amount of Reading
Step #

Factor Entered

Step 1

*G factor 2 =
Study habit
*T factor 3 =
Negative intrinsic
value of stories

Step 2

Multiple
R
.35

R2

.12

.42

.17

13.95
df=1,98
6.23
df=2,97

p<.05
* Note: G factor represents a factor chosen for general motivation whereas
T factor represents a factor chosen for task-specic motivation.

English, Intrinsic Value of SRA, Negative Intrinsic Value of Stories)

whereas Attainment Value emerged as an independent factor of the
principal components of reading and general motivation (they are labelled
Attainment Value of Reading and Attainment Value of Studying English).
This nding suggests that Intrinsic Value and Attainment Value are in fact
separate motivational constructs. However, factors that seem to be
indicative of Extrinsic Utility Value emerged as only one independent
factor of general motivation, and factors which seem to be indicative of
Costs did not appear at all. Such ndings are, however, more likely to be
attributable to the fact that the present study included many items that are
original and idiosyncratic, rather than replicating any other studies that
attempt to verify the expectancy-value theory.
The results of regression analysis indicate that reading prociency
scores were not signicant predictors of the amount of reading. This can
be because the variations in reading prociency were too small to distinguish between students. Consequently, there is a possibility that more
substantial differences in prociency levels would have led to different
results. The ndings also suggest that two out of eleven motivational
factors, namely Study Habits and Negative Intrinsic Value of Stories,
could predict the amount students read. Study Habits is a sub-factor of
general motivation whereas Negative Intrinsic Value of Stories is a subfactor of task-specic motivation. Surprisingly, none of the sub-factors
indicative of reading motivation were found to be signicant predictors of
the amount of reading.
Although the label, Study Habits, was assigned for the sake of con-

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75

venience, the questions were actually concerned with whether they study
English according to a preplanned schedule, and how hard they study
English. This construct, thus, seems to be more closely associated with
Gardner and Tremblys Motivational Intensity, which is another label for
effort. Gardner and Tremblay argue (Gardner and Tremblay 1994; Tremblay and Gardner 1995) that motivation consisting of effort, desire to learn
the language and attitudes toward learning the language, is most strongly
and directly related to language achievement. The nding mentioned
above is partly compliant with their argument that the factor concerning
effort was found to be signicant in predicting the reading behaviour.
Please note, however, that the items that loaded highly on this factor
loaded negatively, it should be more accurately referred to as lack of
Motivational Intensity or effort. In other words, it could be interpreted that
the less the students perceive they are hard and active learners, the less
they read. This nding is interesting since those who did not consider
themselves hard workers or well-planners accurately perceived their
learning behaviour.
Another variable that was contributed to the prediction of variance in
the amount of reading was the students Negative Intrinsic Value of Stories
in the task. The items loading on this factor included such items as Stories
are boring and Stories are childish, and the correlation matrix indicated
that this factor correlated negatively with the amount of reading. It could
be construed, thus, that the less students think stories are boring or childish
for instance, the more they read.
This nding seems to have important pedagogical implications if one
believes that general learning motivation and possibly reading motivation
are more of a trait, and thus difcult to change, whereas task-specic
motivation is more of a state, and thus easier to change. Especially with
university learners of English who are likely to have established certain
beliefs and attitudes concerning and toward learning English in their
previous schooling, it is very challenging for the teacher to change such
established traits of motivation. On the other hand, it could be easier for
the teacher to encourage his/her students to actively engage in a certain
task possibly by choosing and/or modifying the task according to the
students needs and values. For instance, the results of this study imply
that interest and enjoyment involved with the reading task has a positive
inuence on how much students work with the task.
Despite the above-mentioned possible implications, there are some
limitations to the present study. One obvious limitation is the sample size.

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Regional Language Centre Journal 35.1 (2004)

Some statisticians (e.g. Tabachnick and Fidell 1996) suggest that sample
size for factor analyses should be at least 300 in order for correlations to
be reliably estimated. Consequently, the result should be interpreted with
caution.
Another limitation concerns attrition. Although there were 135 students
total in the two classes, only 100 students attended all classes in which the
experiment was carried out. Therefore, if those who were absent from
any/all of the classes shared certain characteristics, there is a possibility
that the pattern of dropping out itself could be a variable which inuenced
the results.
Also bear in mind that since all the participants were in intact groups in
a single institution and share certain characteristics such as gender,
academic background, nationality, and rst language, the generalization of
the ndings is limited. It will be interesting to see whether different
populations engaged in different tasks show similar patterns of correlation
between motivational variables and the amount of reading. Although the
present study completely relied on the students self-reports, future studies
need to utilize a wider variety of qualitative techniques including
observation and interviews in order to investigate students motivation.

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APPENDIX
QUESTIONNAIRE
Part I: Questions Pertaining to Motivation/
Attitudes toward Reading in English
1. I like reading in English.
2. It is fun to read in English.
3. Im interested in reading in English.
*4. Even if reading were not a required subject, I would take a
reading class anyway.
*5. It is a waste of time to learn to read in English.
*6. I am tired of reading in English.
*7. It is difcult to read in English
*8. It is boring to read in English
9. I like reading English novels.
10. I like reading English newspapers and magazines.
11. Reading in English is important because it will broaden my
view.
12. Reading in English is important because it will be conducive
to my general education.
13. Reading in English is important because it will make me a
more knowledgeable person.
14. I am learning to read in English merely because I would like
to get good grades.
15. I am learning to read in English because I think it will help
my future career.
16. I am learning to read in English because I would like to
learn about opinions of various people in the world.
17. I am learning to read in English because it will enable me to
read English novels.
18. I am learning to read in English because it will enable me to
read English newspapers and magazines.
19. When I see people reading an English magazine or a book, I
think they are cool and would like to be like them.

The Continuum Publishing Group Ltd 2004.

Mean
2.63
2.66
2.98
2.62

SD
.92
.87
.98
1.17

3.98
2.59
1.89
3.10
2.40
2.26
4.10

.94
1.04
.88
.89
1.04
1.01
.83

4.06

.81

3.99

.82

2.53

.79

3.35

.94

3.51

.88

2.77

1.10

2.82

1.10

3.75

1.00

80

Regional Language Centre Journal 35.1 (2004)

20. I am learning to read in English because I would like to

study abroad in the future.

2.20

1.00

Part II: Questions Pertaining to Motivation/

Attitudes toward Learning English
1. I enjoy learning English.
2. Learning English is like a hobby to me.
3. I like learning English.
4. English is one of the important subjects.
*5. Learning English is useful.
6. I try to study hard in English classes.
*7. I would like to continue learning English in the future.
*8. I dont like learning English, but I think learning English is
important.
*9. I lose my interest in English classes.
*10. I lose concentration in English classes.
11. Learning English is important because it will broaden my
view.
12. Learning English is important because it will be conducive
to my general education.
13. Learning English is important because it will make me a
more knowledgeable person.
14. I learn English merely because it is a required subject.
15. I learn English because I would like to get good grades.
16. I learn English because I would like to live overseas in the
future.
17. I learn English because it will help me when I travel
overseas.
18. I learn English because it will enable me to understand
English novels and movies.
19. I learn English because it will help my future career.
20. I learn English because I would like to communicate with
foreigners.
21. I study English according to a preplanned schedule.
*22. I try to study hard in English classes.
23. Even if homework in English is tiresome, I will work hard
on it.
24. I procrastinate about doing my homework/assignments until
right before the due date.
25. I work on my assignments according to a preplanned
schedule.
*26. Even if there were no homework, I would try to study
outside the class.
The Continuum Publishing Group Ltd 2004.

Mean
2.70
1.97
2.54
4.00
3.56
3.87
3.07
4.16

SD
.92
.89
.84
.84
1.04
.87
1.02
.81

3.28
3.43
4.04

.93
.90
.75

4.02

.72

3.94

.73

3.04
2.60
2.57

1.04
.86
1.10

3.56

.99

3.20

1.09

3.45
3.40

.91
1.05

1.77
3.91
3.93

.76
.86
.85

3.18

1.20

2.67

1.20

2.71

1.05

MORI Significant Motivational Predictors

27. I work on my assignments just to the extent that I will not
fail a class.
28. I actively participate in English classes.
*29. I spend more time studying for English than for other
classes.
30. I take a chance in preparing for a test by studying only what
I think is most likely to be asked.

81
2.89

.89

3.28
2.81

.90
.99

2.15

.86

Part III: Questions Pertaining to Motivation/

Attitudes toward the Assigned Task
1. I enjoy learning to read using SRA.
2. I like learning to read using SRA.
3. It is boring to read using SRA.
4. It is a waste of time to learn to read using SRA.
5. SRA is useful material to read.
*6. Although I dont like to learn to read with SRA, I do it in
order to get good grades.
*7. Although I dont like to learn to read with SRA, I do it
because I think it is useful.
8. I voluntarily learn to read using SRA.
9. Stories are interesting.
10. Stories in SRA are easy to read as they are short.
11. I cannot feel accomplished as stories are too short.
12. Stories are boring.
13. Stories are childish.
*14. Questions in SRA are difcult.
*15. I am tired of answering questions on SRA.
*16. It is fun to answer questions in SRA.
17. The procedures of SRA are easy to understand.
18. It is easy to use SRA as procedures are repetitious.
*19. It is boring to use SRA as procedures are repetitious.
20. It is easy to see a progress as stories are graded according to
their difculty.
21. SRA provides a good indicator of my reading ability as
stories are graded according to their difculty.
22. I feel accomplished when I read with SRA because stories
are graded according to their difculty.
23. SRA is good as I can read at my own leisure.
24. It is a pain to go and read in the library.
Note: Items with * are the eliminated items.

The Continuum Publishing Group Ltd 2004.

Mean
3.17
3.02
3.35
3.95
4.02
2.78

SD
.84
.89
.91
.82
.73
.96

2.70

.84

3.20
3.47
3.49
3.88
3.46
3.57
2.85
2.82
2.81
3.60
3.54
3.41
3.83

.85
.75
.91
.80
.79
.82
.77
.82
.73
.80
.84
.78
.65

3.78

.66

3.51

.74

4.05
2.55

.74
1.14