A Study On The Correlation Between English Majors’ Reading Motivation And Their Reading Proficiency

A As one of the main channels to obtain language and information, reading plays significant roles in L2 acquisition. For reading acquisition, the will to read or reading motivation is rather necessary and significant. However, compared with much research on general learning motivation, studies on English reading motivation are few and far between. Therefore, the present study attempts to investigate the correlation between reading motivation and reading proficiency of EFL learners in China and identify which of the following components of reading motivation are positively related to reading proficiency: self-efficacy, reading recognition, reading compliance, intrinsic value of reading, extrinsic value of reading and expectancy for success.A hundred and twenty three university students participated in the study and took a reading motivation test adapted from Wigfield and Guthrie’s(1997) MRQ and a reading comprehension test. With the help of SPSS 17.0, descriptive analysis, correlation analysis and an independent-sample T-test are carried out to analyze the relevant data. Furthermore, a post hoc interview is conducted to testify the reliability of the research results. The findings are:(1) As a whole, English majors have strong motivation to read English and they read more for the external incentives than internal desires for reading;(2) there is significantly positive correlation between English majors’ reading motivation and their reading proficiency, including all the sub-reading motivational variables but reading compliance;(3) there are significant differences between high-achiever group and low-achiever group in total reading motivational intensity and three sub-reading motivational variables: self-efficacy, intrinsic value of reading and reading recognition. According to the above research results, some pedagogical implications are suggested.