Research On Junior High School Students’ English Reading Motivation

Reading motivation has been discussed in recent decades. However, most of the research related to reading motivation has been done in L1 or ESL learning environment. English is regarded as a foreign language in China, and with the different research background, the status quo of English reading motivation and the influencing factors may be different and need to be further explored.The purpose of the thesis is to examine the general status quo of junior high school students’ English reading motivation and the main factors which influence their reading motivation. Meanwhile, the study tries to find whether there’s some relationship between English reading motivation and reading achievement. And if there is some relationship, what it is has also been discussed.The study uses quantitative analysis. There are 90 students from Grade Seven participated in the study. A Chinese version of the Motivational Questionnaire had been used to all the participants during a self-study class. After the data collection, factor analysis was used to find the influencing factors and the correlation analysis was used to find the relationship between the English reading motivation and the reading achievement.The findings of the study show that the Junior High School students have strong motivation in English reading. A positive relationship has been found between English reading motivation and the reading achievement. Analysis shows that a strong English reading motivation will promote students’ reading achievement. With the factor analysis, six factors which influence the Junior High School students’ English reading motivation have been found. Among them, Intrinsic Motivation of Reading, Integrative Motivation of Reading, Self-efficacy and Reading Work Avoidance are the most important influencing factors.Due to the different research background, some different influencing factors have been shown. And it has added some contribution to the understanding of the Junior High School students’ reading motivation in China. Measures can be used to foster students’ reading motivation to increase the reading achievement.