What if reading is easy but unimportant? How students’ patterns of affirming and undermining motivation for reading information texts predict different reading outcomes

Abstract

Many affirming and undermining motivational constructs affect students as they read information texts, but few researchers have explored how these motivations are patterned within students. In this study we used cluster analysis to classify middle school students (n = 1,134) based on their patterns of self-efficacy, perceived difficulty, value, and devalue for reading school information texts. We then compared how the patterns predicted students’ language arts grades, science information text comprehension, and dedication to reading school information texts. We found and validated a four-cluster solution. One cluster included a pattern of high affirming and low undermining motivations, and another included low affirming and high undermining motivations. Students with these patterns earned the highest and lowest scores, respectively, on all outcomes. A third pattern showed high self-efficacy/low difficulty with low value/high devalue, and a fourth showed moderate levels of all four motivational constructs. Students with the high efficacy and devalue pattern showed high information text comprehension but relatively low dedication. Students with the moderate pattern showed high dedication but low initial information text comprehension. Students with these two patterns earned similar grades. We discuss the implications of our findings for motivation theories and for school instruction that involves information text reading.

impact of past language arts teachers on the reading motivation of twelfth grade students

“…The results of the surveys and the data collected from teachers support each other in that the behavior reported by teachers is symptomatic of the high expectancy-beliefs and lower task-values reported by students. According to previous research, such as that of Eccles and Wigfield (2002) and recent research by Rosenzweig and Wigfield (2017), grades and achievement in reading are significantly tied to students' expectancy-beliefs.…”

“…Additionally, taskvalue has been associated with students' academic achievement in that it affects students' decisions concerning how much emphasis to place on reading for courses and which courses are selected for enrollment (Eccles & Wigfield, 2002;Rosenzweig & Wigfield, 2017). At this site, students have decided not to place very much emphasis on reading and seem to demonstrate negativity according to teachers' accounts.…”

“…Self-efficacy is similar to expectancy-belief in that it reflects a student's belief that an assignment or activity can be successfully completed. Perceived difficulty is as it sounds, in that a measure of a student's perception of difficulty for a task was rated (Rosenzweig & Wigfield, 2017). Devalue is particularly interesting in that it specifically concerns the student's negative perception that reading is not a valuable activity, currently or in the future (Rosenzweig & Wigfield, 2017).…”

“…They are merely doing the work in a superficial manner. Rosenzweig and Wigfield (2017) conducted an empirical study through which they found four key patterns associated with reading motivation for informational science and language arts texts. There were five factors examined, including: self-efficacy, perceived difficulty, devalue, value, and dedication.…”

“…Perceived difficulty is as it sounds, in that a measure of a student's perception of difficulty for a task was rated (Rosenzweig & Wigfield, 2017). Devalue is particularly interesting in that it specifically concerns the student's negative perception that reading is not a valuable activity, currently or in the future (Rosenzweig & Wigfield, 2017). Value is a student's positive perception of the importance of reading and corresponds with task-value, while dedication is a student's strength of devotion to completing reading assignments (Rosenzweig & Wigfield, 2017).…”