(1694)READING MOTIVATION AND READING STRATEGIES EMPLOYEDBY UNDERGRADUATES IN A PUBLIC UNIVERSITY IN MALAYSIA

摘要

There is an alarming concern among educators and parents about children who cannot read but moreseriously about those who can read but do not have the motivation to read. The study investigated 245undergraduates’ level of reading motivation and their reading strategies use when they read academictexts. This study aims at finding the connection between reading motivation and reading strategy, todiscover the differences between male and female students’ reading motivation and reading strategyand the relationship between variables such as program of study and family’s income. The resultsshowed that the undergraduates’ reading motivation was of moderate level and they mostly use thecognitive reading strategy instead of the metacognitive reading strategy. There seemed to be aconnection between the undergraduates’ reading motivation and the reading strategy used. Theresults indicated that their motivation to read had an influence on the use of the reading strategy.Though female students had higher reading motivation compared to male students, both groups onlyuse the cognitive reading strategy. Therefore, the results showed that undergraduates havingmoderate reading motivation tend to use only cognitive reading strategy. Thus, reading motivationdoes influence the acquisition of reading skills and there is a possibility that the higher readingmotivation, the higher the tendency to use high level reading skills such as metacognitive which is anecessity for students’ effective reading. Instructors should motivate students to become activereaders by improving students’ intrinsic motivation and decreasing their extrinsic motivation. Otherresults revealed that there was a significant difference among the five Diploma programs and finally,the students’ reading motivation had no significant relationship with their economic background.