Reading Motivation and its Relationship to Classroom Social Environment among Intermediate Basic Stage Students in Irbid Governorate

Abstract

This study aimed at exploring the reading motivation level among intermediate stage students in Irbid Governorate, and finding out whether such a level is affected by the variables of class, gender and their interaction, and its relationship to classroom social environment. The sample of the study consisted of (574) fifth, sixth and seventh basic stage male and female students in Irbid Governorate who were chosen by the means of stratified random sampling procedures. In order to achieve the aim of the study, two scales were used. The first was Baker and Wigfield's (1999) scale (MRQ) which comprised of (49) items as covering eleven domains. The second, however, was the classroom social environment scale which was developed by the researchers as covering (28) items and distributed on seven domains. The findings of the study reported that the reading motivation level was high. Also, the study reported statistically significant differences on students' overall reading motivation levels and across its sub-domains that were credited to classroom variable in favor of the fifth grade, in addition to differences in the overall reading motivation level and its sub-domains that were credited to gender variable in favor of female students. What's more, the present study showed appositive correlational relationship between reading motivation level and classroom social environment, where (teacher's academic support domain) was the utmost predictor of students' reading motivation