Educational Psychologist

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Reading motivation: A domain-specific approach

to motivation

Allan Wigfield

To cite this article: Allan Wigfield (1997) Reading motivation: A domain-specific approach to
motivation, Educational Psychologist, 32:2, 59-68, DOI: 10.1207/s15326985ep3202_1

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EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST, 32(2), 59-68
Copyright O 1997, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Reading Motivation: A Domain-Specific Approach to Motivation

Allan Wigfield
Uiziversio of Maryland, College Park

I discuss research on the nature of motivation in the domain of reading, making a case for the
need to examine the domain specificity of motivational constructs. After a review of relevant
motivation theory and research, I describe the development of a questionnaire measure of
reading motivation and summarize the results of 2 studies that utilized the questionnaire. From
the studies' results, it is clear that children's reading motnvation is multidimensio~laland that it
relates to both the frequency of their reading and their reading performance. Certain of the
aspects of reading motivation may be unique to reading. I conclude with a discussion of the
development of reading motivation and how reading motivation is influenced by different
classroom contexts and programs.

Research on motivation has burgeoned over the last 25 years.
As a result, much has been learned about the nature of
children's and adults' motivation. During this past quarter
century, a variety of crucial motivational beliefs, values, and
goals have been identified and studied. Indeed, a hallmark of
research on motivation during this period is its focus on
beliefs, values, and goals as the crucial aspects of motivation.
Theorists from several current theoretical perspectives on
motivation, such as self-efficacy theorists (Bandura, 1977,
1994; Schunk, 1991b), expectancy-value theorists (Eccles et
al., 1983; Wigfield & Eccles, 1992), goal theorists (Ames,
1992b;Dweck & Leggett, 1988;Nicholls, 1979), and self-de-
termination theorists (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Deci, Vallerand,
Pelletier, & Ryan, 1991), discussed how children's beliefs,
values, and goals influence their achievement behaviors.
These beliefs, values, and goals relate to children's and ado-
lescents' performance in school,choice of activities to pursue,
and persistence on those activities, three important indicators
of motivation (see Eccles, Wigfield, & Schiefele, in press;
Graham & Weiner, 1996; Pintrich & Schunk, 1996, for com-
prehensive reviews of the research on motivation).
However, much work remains to be done. In concluding
their chapter reviewing the work on children's motivation,
Eccles, Wigfield, and Schiefele (in press) stated that one
important theoretical and methodological issue is the domain
specificity versus generality of motivational constructs and
processes. Some theorists argue that motivational constructs
vary across domain and should be studied at that level. For
Requests for reprints should be sent to Allan Wigfield, EDHD, University
of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742. E-mail: AW44@umail.umd.edu
example, Bandura (1994) stated that general personality traits
and motivational constructs such as locus of control are too
general to predict specific behaviors very well. He argued that
the strength and focus of motivational construicts (such as his
self-efficacy construct) vary by domain and so should be
studied at the domain-specific level. Other researchers fo-
cused on more general aspects of motivation, such as chil-
dren's goal orientations to achievement overall rather than
their goals in different subject areas (e.g., Dweck & Leggett,
1988; Nicholls, 1979). These theorists proposed that these
broad orientations to achievement do influence different
achievement behaviors. A Sthe fields of psychiology and edu-
cational psychology become more contextualized, the issue
of the domain specificity versus the generality of important
constructs (e.g., motivation) in these fields is taking center
stage. Questions related to this issue include (a) Are all
motivational processes domain specific, or are some more
general?; (b) How do the damain-specific processes vary
across domain?; and (c) How are more general processes
influenced by the particular learning situations encountered
by the child? The issue of the domain specificityof motivation
is an important topic considered in this article.
In this special issue, authors focus on the domain of
reading. As is the case with motivation, over the last 25 years
much has been learned about how children learn to read.
Adams (1990), Barr, Kamil, Illosenthal, and Pearson (1991)
and Ruddell, Ruddell, and Singer (1994) provided important
reviews of much of the recent research on reading. However,
as stated in the overview to this special issue, researchers
studying reading generally emphasized the more cognitive
aspects of reading, and they paid less attention to motivation.
 Furthermore, as discussed later, researchers studying motiva-
tion in the reading domain often did not incorporate the
theoretical models and constructs of motivation theorists.
Therefore, we need to understand better the nature of chil-
dren's motivation for reading, a task at which several re-
searchers at the National Reading Research Center (NRRC)
have been working. The emerging engagement perspective
on reading that provides a framework for research being
conducted at the NRRC includes both the cognitive and the
motivational aspects of reading (see Baker, Afflerbach, &
Reinlung, 1996; Guthrie, 1996; Oldfather & Wigfield, 1996).
My role in the development of the engagement perspective
is the conceptualization of different possible motives for
reading. My colleagues and I adapted the constructs identified
by motivation theorists to the domain of reading to provide a
domain-specific approach to reading motivation. In this arti-
cle, I discuss this conceptualization of reading motivation and
the ways in which we have begun to measure specific reading
motives. I begin with a brief review of important motivational
constructs in several current theoretical approaches to moti-
vation and discuss extant evidence for the domain specificity
of these processes. I then discuss our work on dimensions of
reading motivation and conclude with a consideration of how
these motives may develop in different classroom contexts.
MOTIVATIONAL CONSTRUCTS
Researchers studying motivation defined a number of important
motivational constructs, and they assessed how these constructs
relate to different achievement behaviors. Eccles et al. (in press)
stated that the beliefs, values, and goals studied by motivation
theorists can be conceptualized as different questions students
can ask themselves. The questions most directly related to
motivation (and phrased in terms of reading) are, Can I be a good
reader? and Do I want to be a good reader and why?' I use these
two questions to organize th~sbrief discussion of the different
motivation constructs. This discussion is not meant to be exhaus-
tive. I focus on the motivational constructs that have been central
in my own work. More comprehensive reviews of motivation
theory and constructs can be found in Eccles et al. and Pintrich
and Schunk (1996).
Constructs Related to the Question "Can I
Be a Good Reader?"
The primary constructs captured by this question include
children's ability beliefs, expectancies for success, and self-
-
'A third major question Eccles et al. (in press) stated children can ask
themselves is, What do I need to do to be a good reader? This question
concerns constructs such as self-regulation,volition, strategy use, and help-
seeking, constructsthat deal with links of motivation and cognition. Because
we did not measure these constructs in our work on children's reading
motivation, I do not discuss these constructs further. They are, however,
related to motivation in important ways.
eficacy. Ability beliefs are children's evaluations of their
competence in different areas. Children's and adolescents'
ability beliefs relate to and predict their achievementperform-
ance in different achievement domains such as reading and
math, even when past performance is controlled (e.g., Eccles
et al., 1983; Meece, Wigfield, & Eccles, 1990; Stipek & Mac
Iver, 1989). A construct related to individuals' ability beliefs
is their expectancies for success. Expectancies refer to chil-
dren's sense of how well they will do on an upcoming task
rather than to their general belief of how good they are at the
task. These beliefs also predict children's performance on
different tasks.
Bandura's (1977; see also Schunk, 1991b) construct of
self-efficacy also deals with individuals' expectancies about
being able to do tasks. However, Bandura defined self-effi-
cacy as a generative capacity by which different subskills are
organized into courses of action. Bandura proposed that indi-
viduals' eficacy expectations, or their beliefs about how well
they can accomplish a given task or activity, are a major
determinant of activity choice, willingness to expend effort,
and persistence. When they think they can accomplish a task,
people are more likely to choose to do it, expend effort and
persist when they encounter difficulty, and ultimately com-
plete the task. Note the focus on tasks means that Bandura
conceptualized efficacy beliefs as quite specific. He argued
that specific efficacy beliefs for particular tasks relate more
closely to task performance than do more general beliefs. In
work with school-age children, Schunk and his colleagues
(see Schunk, 1991b, for a review) demonstrated that students'
sense of efficacy relates to their academic performance, in-
cluding their reading achievement (e.g., Schunk & Rice,
1993). Thus, for reading, when children believe they are
competent and efficacious at reading, they should be more
likely to engage in reading.
Constructs Related to the Question "Do I
Want to Be a Good Reader and Why?"
This second question deals with children's reasons for doing
(or not doing) different activities. It is an important question
because competence and efficacy beliefs alone are not suffi-
cient to produce engagement. Even if individuals believe they
are competent and efficacious at an activity, they may not
engage in it if they have no reason or incentive for doing so.
One construct captured by the "Do I want to" part of this
question is subjective task values. Subjectivetask values refer
broadly to different incentives individuals have for doing
different activities, or the reasons they want to do different
activities.
Eccles, Wigfield, and their colleagues studied the nature
of children's and adolescents' subjectivetask values and how
their values relate to their performance and choice of different
activities. They defined different components of subjective
taskvalues, including interest value, defined as how much the

individual likes or is interested in the activity; attainment
value, defined as the importance of the activity; and utility
value, or the usefulness of an activity (see Eccles et al., 1983;
Wigfield & Ekcles, 1992, for reviews of this wlork and further
discussion of the different components of subjective task
values). A major finding from this work is that children's
subjective task values predict both their intentions and actual
decisions to keep taking mathematics and English, even when
previous performance is controlled (Eccles et ad., 1983;
Meece et al., 1990).
A second major construct captured by the "Do I want to"
part of this question is intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.
Intrinsic motivation refers to being motivated and curious to
do an activity for its own sake. Extrinsic motivation refers to
being motivated in an activity as a means to an end, such as
receiving a reward or because someone tells you to do the
activity (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Harter, 1981). Thus, intrinsic
motivation has some parallels with the interest value construct
defined by Ekcles et aA. (1983). One aspect of intrinsic moti-
vation is becoming totally involved in the activity one is
doing. Many readers have experienced what Csikszentmiha-
lyi (1978) described as the f l o l ~experience, losing track of
time and self-awareness when becoming completely involved
in an activity such as reading a book. Oldfather's (1992)
notion of the continuing impulse to learn, which is charac-
terized by intense involvement., curiosity, and a search for
understanding, is a social constructivist notion of intrinsic
motivation. An important implication of these theorists' work
for reading is that readers' engagement in reading will be
greatly facilitated when they are intrinsically motivated to
read and find personal meaning in their reading.
The "Why do I want to be a good reader" part of this
questionis capturedprimarily by two constructs: achievement
goals and the subjective task values discussed earlier.
Achievement goals are the purposes children have for
achievement in different areas, so they deal directly with the
"whys" of behavior. Researchers study diffwent kinds of
achievement goals. Some (e.g., Ames, 1992b; Dweck &
Leggett, 1988; Nicholls, 1979; Micholls, Cheung, Lauer, &
Patashnick, 1989) defined different broad goal orientations
toward achievement,with two goal orientationsdeemed most
prominent. These orientations are the goal to learn an activity
and the goal to outperform others. These goal orientations
have important consequences for motivation. When students
focus on outperforming others, they ara more likely to choose
to do tasks and activities they know they can do well. In
contrast, children focusing on learning choose challenging
tasks and are more concerned with their own progress than
with outperforming others. Researchers studying children's
goals argued that children who have learning goals are more
likely to maintain positive motivation in school (Ames,
1992b). Much of the work on goal orientations has focused
on these broad goal orientations to achievement rather than
on the orientations in particular subject areas (see Meece,
1991, 1994, for an important exception).
DOMAIN-SPECIFICREADING MOTIVES 61
These broad goal orientations or patterns axe not the only
ways researchers study goals. Schunk (1991a, 1994) looked
at properties of goals, such as whether they are distal or
proximal, general or specific, or easy or difficult to attain.
Others (e.g., Wentzei, 1991, 1996) proposed that students
have imultiple goals in achievement settings, including both
academic and social goals (:see also Urdan & :Maehr, 1995).
Evidence for the Domain Specificity of
Motivation
What evidence is there for the domain specificity of the
different motivational constructs considered in this article?
Some of the best evidencecomes from factor analyticresearch
on children's competence beliefs and from research on self-
efficacy beliefs. Various researchers examine:d the structure
of children's beliefs about competence by factor analyzing
children's responses to various questionnaire measures of
competence beliefs (e.g., Ixcles & Wigfield, 1995; Eccles,
Wigfield, Harold, & Blumenfeld, 1993; Harteir, 1982;Marsh,
Craven, & Debus, 1991). A basic question addressed by these
researchers concerns whether the factors that emerge reflect
children's competence beliefs across several domains or
about single domains. If the: former is true, children's compe-
tence beliefs can be considered rather general, cutting across
different activity areas. If the latter is true, children's compe-
tence beliefs can be considerecl specific to a given domain.
One clear finding emergmg from the factor analytic studies
is that even during the early elementary school years, children's
competence beliefs form distinct factors in different domains,
indicating that children's competence beliefs are domain spe-
cific. For instance, Harter (1982) studied third- through ninth-
grade children's perceived academic, social, and physical com-
petence. She found that, at all1 grade levels, childken's perceived
competence in each area fimmed a separate factor.
Eccles et al. (1993) assessed children's beliefs about their
competence in several different domains, including mathe-
matics, reading, music, and sports activities; the youngest
children included in the stutdy were in first gr,ade.The factor
analyses showed that childiren's beliefs about competence in
the different domains formed clear, distinct factors. Marsh et
al. (1991) found that, even for kindergarten children, separate
domains of competence coluld be identified clearly. Thus, in
the earliest elementary sch~oolgrades, children have distinct
competence beliefs in different domains.
As discussed earlier, researchers interested in self-efficacy
both define efficacy very specifically (e.g., Bandura, 1977,
19941, and measure it speci~fically.For instance, Schunk and
his colleagues (see Schunk, 199lb, 1994,for reviews), in their
studies to improve children's efficacy and performance in
reading and math, measured efficacy in very task-specific
ways. These researchers argued that more specific efficacy
beliefs should relate more closely to actual achievement be-
haviors in the particular doimain of interest.
62 WIGFIELD
Eccles et al. (1993) examined the domain specificity of
elementary school age children's subjectivetask values. They
found that children's subjective values were differentiated
across domain, even during the early elementary school years.
However, the different components of subjective values de-
fined by Eccles et al. (1993) could not be identified as clearly
in each domain in the younger children as they were in work
with older children and adolescents (Eccles & Wigfield,
1995). Thus, much like the findings for competence beliefs,
children's valuing of achievement activities is domain spe-
cific, even during the early elementary grades.
The work on children's inhinsic and extrinsic motivation
has been both general and domain specific. Harter's (1981)
scale to measure intrinsic and extrinsic motivation measures
them at the general schoolwork level rather than at the task-
specific level. However, Gottfried's (1986, 1990) question-
naires to measure children's academic intrinsicmotivation are
domain specific because the questions ask children about
intrinsic motivation in different school subject areas.
Measures of different kinds of goals and achievement goal
orientations have tended to be general. For instance, Wentzel
(1991) defined multiple social and academic goals, but she
did not examine how these goals might vary across different
achievement activities. Nicholls et al,'s (1989) questionnaire
assessing learning and performance goals (or task involved
and ego goals, in their terminology) also asks about general
goal orientationsto school rather than about goal orientations
within specific subject areas. Thus, researchers have not
examined if these goal orientations are distinctivein different
subject area d.amaim2If goal orientations are conceptualized
as broad ways children have of approaching achievement, it
makes sense to measure them generally. However, as we learn
more about how different learning tasks and environments
influencechildren's motivation, it is conceivable that children
could be task focused in one subject area and ego focused in
another. Meece (see Mleece, 1991, 19P4, for reviews), who
looked at goal orientations within a particular subject area,
examined student's goal orientations specifically for science.
Thus, for some of the important motivation constructs,
particularly competence and efficacy beliefs, there is strong
evidencefor domain specificity.For other constructs, particu-
larly achievement goal orientations, most of the measures are
general. Therefore, we know less about how the orientations
may differ across domains.
Another potentially important issue regarding domain
specificity is whether the meaning of motivation constructs
varies across domains. That is, is a given construct (e.g.,
competence beliefs) conceptually different in reading than in
- pp
2 ~ focus
y in this article is on different academic domains. Duda and
Nicholls (1992) reported that adolescents' responsesto questions about their
goal orientation in both academics and sports factored into general rather
than domain-specific factors. Thus, they argued that adolescents' goal orien-
tations are not domain specific. Further work of this kind is needed with
different academic subjects areas.
math? The skills needed in each domain are different, and this
may mean children's beliefs about competence also differ
across domain. We know that developmentally there are
differences in how children view competence beliefs, with
younger children seeing ability and effort as complementary
and older children seeing them as inversely related (see
Nicholls, 1990; Stipek & Mac Iver, 1989). Whether there are
differences in children's conceptions of ability in different
domains has not been considered. Another question related to
this issue concerns aspects of reading that produce unique
kinds of motives, motives that would not occur in another
domain, such as math. Very little conceptual or empirical
work has been done to address such questions.
ASPECTS OF READING MOTIVATION
In this section, I first review briefly the research on reading
attitudes and interest in reading. I then turn to my colleagues'
and my conceptualization and measurement of different as-
pects of reading motivation.
Attitudes About Reading and Interest in
Reading
Reading researchers have discussed affective and motiva-
tional constructs that can influence reading engagement. One
construct assessed is children's attitudes toward reading,
generally defined as individuals' feelings about reading, such
as whether they enjoy reading (see J. E. Alexander & Filler,
1976). Alexander and Filler stated that these feelings about
reading should influencehow much individualsinvolvethem-
selves in reading; thus, attitudes about reading should relate
to individuals' motivation for reading (see also Matthewson,
1994; Ruddell & Speaker, 1985, for more specific models of
how individuals' attitudes toward reading influence their
reading engagement). Although Matthewson (1985) stated
that individuals' attitudestoward reading differ across subject
areas, scales designed to assess individuals' attitudes toward
reading have remained rather general (e.g., McKenna & Kear,
1990). Furthermore, although attitudes toward reading are
said to have motivati~nalconsequences, the work in this area
by and large has not been connected to the dominant theories
in the motivation literature.
There also is a growing body of research on reading
interest and how interest influences reading comprehension
(see P. A. Alexander, Kulikowich, & Jetton, 1994, for a
review of the work on interest's effects on text comprehen-
sion; see also Alexa~der,1997). Schiefele (1991) noted the
important distinction between individual interest and situ-
ational or text-based interest. He defined individual interests
as relatively stable feelings about different activity areas (e.g.,
reading); people generally tend to be interested in some
activities and less interested in other activities. Such individ-
 DOMAmI-S8PECIFIC
READING hAOTIVES 63

ual interests seem similar to the intrinsic motivation construct
discussed earlier. Situational interests are more activity spe-
cific and less stable. Using reading as an example, situational
interest is interest sparked by a particular text or other features
of a particular reading act. Alexander (1997) makes a similar
distinction between personal and situational interesl..
Individuals' interest in what they read influences their
comprehension. For instance, Schiefele (199111 assessed how
college students' situational interest in text materids influ-
enced their comprehen~sionwhen the students' prior knowl-
edge of the materials and general intelligencewere controlled.
Schiefele found that college students intereslad in the text
materials used in the study processed those materials more
deeply and used more elaborate learning strategies while
reading than did students less interested in the materials.
Renninger (1992) found in studies of fifth and sixth graders
that interest in the materials read enhanced comprehension,
even of materials that were quite difficult for the children
(although there were some gender differences in these pat-
terns). In summary, students' interest in the material they are
reading relates quite clearly to the use of effective learning
strategies, their level olf attention, and their comprehension of
reading materials.
A Multidimensional Approach to Reading
Motivation
My colleagues and I have begun to delineate aspects of
motivation for reading and how these reading motives relate
to the frequency with which children read and to their reading
performance. In conceptualizing reading motivatiom, we be-
gan with two major points. First, we believed that there are a
variety of reading motives that can influence children's en-
gagement in reading and their reading performance (see Old-
father & Wigfield, 1996; Wigfield & Guthrie, in press, for
further discussion). Fwthermore, there likely will be differ-
ences across children concerning the aspects of motivation
that relate to their engagement in reading. Second, this con-
ceptualization of reading motivation is based in large part on
motivation theory, most notably self-efficacy theory, achieve-
ment goal theory, intrinsic motivation theory, and expec-
tancy-value theory.
Wigfield and Guthrie (in press), based on their exarnina-
tion of motivation theory and conversations with children
concerning what motivates them to read, initially defined 11
possible aspects of reading motivation. The aspects are sum-
marized in Table 1. The first two aspects arc: based on the
competence and efficacy belief constructs, and they include
the notion that reading often is something that requires hard
work to accomplish. These aspects are reading eficacy, the
belief that one can be suc;cessful at reading,, and reading
challenge, the satisfaction of mastering or assimilating com-
plex ideas in text.
The next set of aspects is based on the work on intrinsic
and extrinsic motivation, values, and learning and perform-
ance goals. Aspects tied to intrinsic motivation and learning
gods include reading c~ri~osity, the desire tal learn about a
particular topic of interest 1.0 the child, and reading involve-
ment, or the enjoyment of experiencing different lands of
literary or informationaltexts. The notion of recadinginvolve-
ment refers to the pleasure gained from reading a well-written
book or article on a topic one finds interesting. Although this
construct is similar in certain ways to being motivated by
intrinsic interest, it is some:thing we thought imay be unique
to the reading area. Importance of reading is an aspect taken
from Eccles's and Wigfieldl's work on subjective task values
(e.g., Eccl~eset al., 1983; Wigfield & Eccles, 1992); it con-
cerns the individual's sense that reading is an activity of
central importance to the individual.
Different aspects of extrinsic motivation also were distin-
guished. Reading recognition is the pleasure in receiving a
tangible form of recognition for success in reading, and
reading for grades assesses the desire to be faxorably evalu-
ated by th~eteacher. Competition in reading is the desire to
outperform others in reading, an aspect tied t~othe notion of
performance goals. These latter three aspects reflect the fact
that cl~ildr~endo much of their reading in scho~ol,where their
reading performance is evaluated, and children compare their
performance to others' performance. Thus, extrinsic motiva-
tion and performance gods, as reflected in the aspects recog-
nition, grades, and competition, may figure prominently in
children's motivation for readmng.
The final aspects focus on the social aspects of reading
because reading often is a social activity. With the exception
of Wentzel's (1991, 1996) work in the general motivation
literature, social goals for achievement have not been dis-

TABLE 1
Proposed Aspects of Reading Motivation

Aspects Tapping Competence Aspects Tapping Achievement Aspects Tapping Social

and Eflcacy Beliefs Values and Goals Aspects ojf Reading
-
Reading efficacy Reading curiosity Social reasons for reading
Reading challenge Reading involvement Reading compliance
Reading work avoidance Importance of reading
Competition in reading
Reading recognition
Reading for grades
cussed often (see also Urdan & Maehr, 1995). Such goals
seem essential for reading motivation because reading
often takes place in social settings. Children read together
in class, and families read together at home. The first of
these aspects is social reasons for reading, or the process
of sharing with friends and family the meanings gained
from reading. The second is reading compliance, or read-
ing because of an external goal or requirement; in particu-
lar, reading because the teacher requires reading. These
aspects are based on the work on achievement goals in the
motivation literature.
A final aspect concerns things children say they do not like
about reading; Wigfield and Guthrie (in press) called this
aspect reading work avoidance. This aspect is somewhat
similar to the work on avoidance goals of Nicholls et al.
(1989).
Measuring Reading Motivation
Wigfield, Guthrie, and McGough (1996) developed a ques-
tionnaire called the Motivation for Reading Questionnaire
(MRQ) to measure these different constructs. Originally, the
questionnaire contained 82 items and was given to approxi-
mately 100 fourth- and fifth-grade students twice over the
course of a school year (see Wigfield & Guthrie, in press;
Wigfield, Guthrie, & McGough, 1996, for more details about
this study, a complete item list, and instructions for adrninis-
tering and scoring the MRQ). Sample items from each aspect
are presented in Table 2. Various statistical analyses were run
to assess the proposed aspects of reading motivation and to
determinewhether the items had good psychometric qualities.
TABLE 2
Sample Items From the Motivation for Reading
Questionnaire
Reading efJicacy
I am a good reader.
Reading challenge
I like hard, challenging books.
Reading curiosity
I like to read about new things.
Reading involvement
I read stories about fantasy and make-believe.
Importance of reading
It is very important to me to be a good reader.
Competition in reading
I try to get more answers right than my friends.
Reading recognition
I like having the teacher say I read well.
Readingfiv grades
I read to improve my grades.
Social reasonsfor reading
I talk to my friends about what I am reading.
Reading compliance
I always do my reading exactly as the teacher wants it.
Reading work avoidance
I don't like reading something when the words are too difficult.
These analyses (see Wigfield & Guthrie, in press, for a more
detailed description) showed that a number of the proposed
aspects could be identified clearly and had adequate to good
internal consistency reliabilities. The most clearly defined
aspects included social reasons for reading, reading competi-
tion, reading work avoidance, reading efficacy, reading rec-
ognition, reading challenge, reading curiosity, and reading
involvement.
Based on the results of the first study, a revised 54-item
version of the MRQ was created. This revised version of the
questionnaire was given to approximately 600 fifth- and
sixth-grade children; the sample came from six urban schools
and was ethnically mixed (see Wigfield, Wilde, Baker, Fer-
nandez-Fein, & Scher, 1996, for a more detailed description).
Confirmatory factor analyses were used to assess the different
aspects of reading motivation. The different aspects emerged
clearly in these analyses, and again they had adequate to good
internal consistency reliabilities. Thus, an important conclu-
sion from both these studies is that children's reading moti-
vation is multidimensional.
Linking Reading Motivation to Reading
Frequency and Performance
Wigfield and Guthrie (in press) also obtained information
about children's reading frequencies from the Reading Ac-
tivities Inventory (Guthrie, McGough, & Wigfield, 1994), a
measure that asks children to list titles of different kinds of
books they recently read and to indicate how often they read
different kinds of books. They also obtained the number of
hours children read as part of a school-based reading program
that encouraged children to read books. Wigfield and Guthrie
related the aspects of reading motivation to these measures of
reading breadth and amount. The aspects relating most
strongly included social reasons for reading, reading efficacy,
reading curiosity, reading involvement, reading recognition,
reading for grades, and importance of reading. Thus, both
more intrinsic and more extrinsic reading motives related to
children's reading breadth and amount; however, overall it
appeared that the intrinsicmotivation for reading related more
strongly to the outcomes than did the extrinsic motivation.
Children's self-reports of their reading frequency were ob-
tained in the second study. As in Wigfield and Guthrie's
study, both intrinsic and extrinsic aspects of children's moti-
vation related to their reading frequency. However, the
strongest relations were wirh the more intrinsic reading mo-
tivation aspects and reading self-efficacy.
Wigfield and Guthrie (in press) also looked at how children
with different levels of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation
differed in the amount and breadth of their reading. They first
created composite intrinsic and extrinsic motivations vari-
ables. The intrinsic motivation variable was a sum of chil-
dren's scores on the curiosity, involvement, and efficacy
scales; and the extrinsic motivation variable was a sum of
scores on the recognition, grades, and competition scales.

They divided the children into high, middle, and low groups
on each of these composite scales and looked at hiow these
groups varied in the amount of time they spent reading. The
results showed strong and significant differences in the
amount of reading across the high, middle, arid low intrinsi-
cally motivated groups. Children higher in intrinsic motiva-
tion read much more than did chilldren medium and low in
intrinsic motivation. In contrast., the three groups of extrinsi-
cally motivated children did not differ as greatly in the amount
of reading they did.
In addition,regression analysesto predict reading amount and
breadth were conducted in which the intrinsic motivation com-
posite and the extrinsic motivation composite were (entered in
different orders. In one set of analyses, the extrinsic composite
was entered first, followed by the intrinsic composite. In the
second set, this order was reversed. The results showedthatwhen
added last, the intrinsic component was more likely to increase
the R~ than was the exhrinsic composite when it was added last.
Therefore, the intrinsic motivation composite was th~estronger
predictor. Thus, it is not only the level of motivation but the level
of intrinsic motivation that relates more strongly to children's
amount and breadth of reading.
In the second study, Wigfield, Wilde, et al. (1996) looked
at relations of children's reading motivation to their reading
performance. Students completed two subtests of the
Gates-MacGinitie (GM) Reading Test (Vocabulary and
Comprehension) and two performance assessments designed
for the project (see Baker, Fernandez-Fein, & Scher, 1995,
for descriptions of these assesements). Relations of reading
motivation to reading performance were examined by re-
gressing reading perhrmance on the aspects of children's
reading motivation. The results of these regression^ analyses
showed that the motivation scales accounted for between 6%
and 13% of the variance in the performance measures. The
motivation scales predicting most consistently the C;M scores
included reading work avoidance, social reasons for reading,
and reading efficacy and reading recognition. Both reading
work avoidance and social reasons for reading negatively
predicted GM scores, indicating that children with higher
scores on these motivation scales had lower GM scores.
Reading efficacy and reading recognition positively predicted
GM scores; children with higher scores on these scales tended
to score higher on the GM measures.
The motivation scales most consistently predicting the
performance assessment (PA) measures included reading
work avoidance and social reasons for reading, both of which
were negative predictors. The negative relations indicated that
children scoring higher on these motivation scales tended to
score lower on the PA measures. Reading efficacy and reading
recognition predicted two of the PA scales positively, which
indicated that children with higher scores on these scales
tended to have higher PA scores. Competition in reading was
another negative predictor.
In summary, there are different aspects of reading motiva-
tion that can be measured reliably. These aspects include some
DOMAIN-!SPECIFICREADING IMOTIVES 65
of the important constructs identified by motivation re-
searchers: efficacy and challenge, intrinsic and extrinsic mo-
tivation, and different goals foir reading. Aspects of children's
reading motivation, particularlly intrinsic aspects, relate posi-
tively to the amount and breadth of children's reading. Some
of them (especially reading efficacy and reading recognition)
positively predict children's performance on standardized
tests, whereas others (especially reading work avoidance and
socialreasons for reading) negatively predictthese test scores.
Domain Specificity Revisited
What does this evidence concerning the multidimensionality
of seading motivation me:an for the issue of the domain
specificity of motivation? The different aspects of reading
motivation identified show the importance of looking at mo-
tivation within particular domains. There an: two ways (at
least) to think about these aspects in terms of the issue of
domain specificity. First, Inany of the motivational aspects
assessed by Wigfield and Guthrie (in press) and Wigfield,
Wilde, et al. (1996) can be measured reliably in the reading
domain, and several of them (and composites based on them)
predict reading performance 'and frequency. Ilowever, these
aspects are not necessarily unique to reading,; each of them
could be (and some have been11measured in other domains as
well. However, to understand reading performance and fre-
quency, it is important to measure these constnvcts within the
domain of reading, which is something the MRQ allows
researchers to do.
Second, some of the aspects actually may be unique to the
reading domain. There are fhree aspects for which this is most
1ike:ljr: reading involvement, reading curiosity, and social
reasons for reading. The reading involvement and reading
curiosity scales assess the construct of intrinsic motivation,
but the items on those scales refer to particular aspects of the
reading experience that may be intrinsically motivating for
children. Examples (see also Table 2) are losing track of time
while reading, and enjoying particular kinds of books. Simi-
larly, the items on the social reasons for reading scale tap
particular things about the social experience of reading. Al-
though these constructs could exist in other domains, they
likely would have a different flavor or character in the other
domains. For instance, the social experience of reading can
involve reading to siblings and trading books with friends;
such sharing likely does not happen in mathematics. The point
is, there may be certain aspects of reading motivation that are
unique to this domain, and the MRQ assesses some of them.
There may be other poter~tiallyunique aspects of reading
motivation yet to be assessed. Researchers interested in mo-
tivatifonin reading, and in other domains, should think about
the unique ways children may be motivated to pursue activi-
ties in those domains. By doing so, we may be able to develop
more domain-specific conc:epitions and measures of motiva-
tion in different areas.
66 WIGFIELD
FURTHER ISSUES REGARDING
READING MOTIVATION
Numerous issues regarding reading motivation need further
investigation. I close with a consideration of two of these: how
children's reading motivation develops and how it may be
facilitated.
The Development of Reading Motivation
There are at least two ways of looking at how children's
reading motivation develops. One is to consider how the
different aspectsthemselves develop.That is, can the different
aspects of reading motivation identified in my colleagues' and
my research with older elementary school age children also
be identified in younger children? Recall that researchers
doing factor analytic studies of children's competence beliefs
found that even kindergarten children's competence beliefs
form distinct factors in different domains, as do their achieve-
ment values (Eccles et d., 1993; Harter, 1982; Marsh, 1989).
However, we know less about how different aspects of moti-
vation are differentiated within a domain such as reading,
especially among younger children. Harter (1983) proposed
that self-related beliefs proceed from a more global state to a
more differentiated state. This suggests that children's read-
ing motivation initially is more global, becoming differenti-
ated as children go through school. It would be interesting to
test this predicted developmental pattern by giving the MRQ
to children of different ages and looking at the factor structure
of their responses.
A second way is to consider mean-level changes in reading
motivation. Do children's reading motives increase or de-
crease as they go through school? Researchers studying chil-
dren's motivation found that different aspects of children's
school motivation decline over the school years. These de-
clines were found in children's general interest in school
(Epstein & McPartland, 1976), their intrinsic motivation
(Harter, 1981), their continuing impulse to learn (Oldfather,
1992; Oldfather & McLaughlin, 1993), and their ability be-
liefs and expectanciesfor success for different school subjects
(e.g., Eccles et al., 1993; Marsh, 1989; see also Eccles et al.,
in press, for a more detailed review of this work).
Eccles et al. (1993) and Marsh (1989) asked children
specifically about reading and found that older elementary
school children had less positive ability beliefs in reading and
valued reading less than did younger elementary school chil-
dren. Gambrell, Codling, and Palmer (1996) found similar
patterns in third and fifth graders' reading self-concepts and
values. However, few age differences in reading motivation
were found by Wigfield and Guthrie (in press) and by Wig-
field, Wilde, et al. (1996). This may be because these studies
did not include a wide age range of children. Research is
needed that looks at the development of reading motivation
across the school years.
Overall, however, the weight of the evidence suggests that
reading motivation declines across the school years. I dis-
cussed earlier how reading motivation relates to the frequency
with which children read. If children's motivation for reading
does decline across the school years, this does not bode well
for their continued engagement in reading. What can be done
about this problem? That topic is considered next.
Facilitating Reading Motivation
Several researchers suggested that the declines in motivation
observed as children proceed through school are due to
changes in school and classroom environments(see Wigfield,
Eccles, & Pintrich, 1996, for more complete reviews of this
work). This is an important point because motivation often is
considered a characteristicof the individual, when in fact it is
greatly influenced by the kinds of learning environments in
which children find themselves. Researchers in the general
motivation field suggested that practices such as ability
grouping, too much teacher control and discipline, and fewer
opportunities for student decision making and choice can
lessen students' motivation. Wigfield et al. discussed in detail
how these changes can lessen students' competence and effi-
cacy beliefs, reduce intrinsicmotivation for learning, and lead
children to focus more on rewards and grades than on curios-
ity and learning, They also discussed how the kinds of prac-
tices just discussed become more prevalent during the middle
school years (see also Eccles et al., in press).
Motivation researchers such as Ames (1992a) and Maehr
and Midgley (1996) developed programs to facilitate chil-
dren's motivation and performance. Ames, with her Task
Authority Recognition Grouping Evaluation Time (TAR-
GET) program, focused on changing different aspects of
instruction in the classroom (such as the tasks children do,
how they are evaluated, how they are grouped, etc.) in order
to enhance the motivation of more students. Building on this
work, Maehr and Midgley focused more broadly on changing
the entire school culture regarding motivation. These re-
searchers found that students' motivation and performance
improved as a result of such changes (although the process of
change can be challenging).
Reading researchers developed new instructional pro-
grams to enhance reading motivation and engagement; see
Guthrie and A l a ~(1997) and articles on Concept-Oriented
Reading Instruction (CORI) developed by Guthrie et al.
(1996) and Guthrie and McCann (1997) for more detailed
discussions. Guthrie et al. found that nearly all the third- and
fifth-grade children experiencingC O N increased in intrinsic
motivation, use of volitional strategies, and reading engage-
ment and frequency. Other exciting new classroom curricula
and district-based programs designed to foster children's
engagement in reading were described by Au (1997), Bruning
and Schweiger (1997), and Santa (1997). Such programs

provide hope for alleviating observed declines in reading
motivation.
In conclusion, we identified different aspects of reading
motivation and found these aspects of reading motivation can
be identified empirically. Many of the aspects relate to chil-
dren's reading frequency and reading performance. It is im-
portant to continue to explore reading motivation and the
cognitive aspects of reading to develop a complete under-
standing of the development of children's reading skills. By
understanding children's reading, motivation reseamhers and
practitioners can work to foster children's continued engage-
ment in reading.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The studies on reading motivation discussed in this article are
National Reading Research Projects of the University of Georgia
and the University of Maryland. They were supported under the
Educational Research and Development Centers Program
(PRIAWARD NO. 117A2007)as administeredby the Office of
Educational Research and Improvement, U. S. Department of
Education. The findings and opinions expressed here do not
necessarily reflect the position or policies of the National Read-
ing Research Center, the Office of Educational Research and
Improvement, or the U. S . Department of Education.
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