EFL University Learners’ Profile of Reading Motivation and Reading Competence

Abstract

While reading motivation research has predominantly been conducted within the area of L1 reading with children and adolescent learners, this study was to examine how the multidimensional aspects of L2 reading motivation may transpire for L2 EFL university learners. This L2 reading motivation was researched with an adapted version of Motivations for Reading Questionnaire, along with information on the learners’ L2 reading proficiency, L2 general proficiency, reading fluency, and affiliated majors. The factor analysis resulted in the loading of five reading motivation factors (i.e., reading involvement, reading curiosity, learning goal-oriented motivation, utility value, and reading efficacy & competence). The quantitative results demonstrated that the learners’ reading motivation was characterized by goal-oriented reading motivation and utility value of L2 reading. On the other hand, the learners lacked reading involvement toward L2 reading. However, one-way ANOVA revealed that it was reading involvement that produced proficiency group differences. Linear multiple regression indicated goal-oriented motivation to be a significant predictor of language proficiency, and this validated the learners’ endorsement of motivation for instrumental reasons. Implications for increasing L2 reading motivation are discussed in the study.