Contexts for Engagement and Motivation in Reading
John T. Guthrie
Overview
Engaged reading is a merger of motivation and
thoughtfulness. Engaged readers seek to
understand; they enjoy learning and they believe
in their reading abilities. They are mastery
oriented, intrinsically motivated, and have selfefficacy.
Classroom contexts can promote engaged reading.
Teachers create contexts for engagement when
they provide prominent knowledge goals, realworld connections to reading, meaningful choices
about what, when, and how to read, and
interesting texts that are familiar, vivid, important,
and relevant. Teachers can further engagement by
teaching reading strategies. A coherent classroom
fuses these qualities.
In this article, which draws on work published in
the chapter Allan Wigfield and I coauthored for the
Handbook of Reading Research: Volume III
(Guthrie & Wigfield, 2000) and in an article on the
development of concept-oriented reading
instruction for Educational Psychology Review
(Guthrie & Cox, in press), I discuss engaged
reading and its consequences. The particular focus
is on the contribution of children’s motivation.
Instructional contexts that foster reading
engagement and motivation are presented.
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The Importance of Engagement | Motivation Research | Instructional
Contexts | Conclusion | References
The Importance of Engagement
Devotion to reading spans across time, transfers to a variety of situations, and
culminates in valuable learning. Devoted students are intent on reading to
understand. They focus on meaning and avoid distractions. Strategies such as selfmonitoring and inferencing are used with little effort. These readers exchange ideas
and interpretations with fellow students. We refer to such students, those who are
intrinsically motivated to read for knowledge and enjoyment, as “engaged” readers.
Engagement is strongly related to reading achievement. In the United States, a
national sample of students at three ages (9, 13, and 17 years) revealed that the
more highly engaged readers showed higher achievement than the less engaged
readers (Campbell, Voelkl, & Donahue, 1997, online document). In cross-age
comparisons, 13-year-old students with higher reading engagement achieved at a
higher level than did less engaged 17-year-old students. Engagement in reading can
also compensate for low achievement attributed to low family income and
educational background. In the same national data, engaged readers from low
income/education families achieved at a higher level than did less engaged readers
from high income/education backgrounds. Engaged readers can overcome obstacles
to achievement and become agents of their own reading growth (Guthrie, Schafer, &
Huang, 2001).
An engaged reader comprehends a text not only because she can do it, but because
she is motivated to do it. Oldfather and Dahl (1994) and Turner (1995) portray
students’ enjoyment in reading for its own sake as essential to engaged reading.
Csikszentmihalyi (1991) describes engaged reading as a state of total absorption or
“flow.” Cambourne (1995) argues that engagement is a merger of multiple qualities
that entails holding a purpose, seeking to understand, believing in one’s own
capability, and taking responsibility for learning.
Guthrie, McGough, Bennett, and Rice (1996) found engaged readers be motivated,
strategic, knowledgeable, and socially interactive. Engaged readers are motivated to
read for a variety of personal goals. They are strategic in using multiple approaches
to comprehend. They use knowledge actively to construct new understanding from
text. And they interact socially in their approach to literacy. Engaged readers are
decision makers whose affects as well as their language and cognition play a role in
their reading practices.
Motivation Research
Researchers have found motivation to be multifaceted. This means that within an
individual, some types of motivation will be stronger than others. In motivation
research, investigators have focused primarily on task-mastery orientation and
performance orientation. Individuals with a mastery orientation seek to improve their
skills and accept new challenges (Ames, 1992; Ames & Archer, 1988; Dweck &
Leggett, 1988; Nicholls, 1979; Nicholls, Cheung, Lauer, & Patashnick, 1989). They
are dedicated to content understanding and learning flexible skills. “Individuals with
a performance (or ego) orientation attempt to maximize favorable evaluations of
their ability” (Thorkildsen & Nicholls, 1998). Performance orientation is seen as
extrinsic motivation. It is associated with the use of surface strategies for reading
and desire to complete a task rather than to understand or enjoy a text (Meece &
Miller, 1999).
Although both these broad goal orientations have implications for motivation, most
motivation researchers believe that the task-mastery goal is more likely to foster
long-term engagement and learning then the performance goal, especially when the
performance goal emphasizes fear of failure (Ames, 1992; Maehr & Midgley, 1996).
Self-efficacy is another aspect of reading motivation. Bandura (1986) defines selfefficacy as “people’s judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute courses
of action required to attain designated types of performances” (p. 391). Schunk and
Zimmerman (1997) reviewed research showing that students with high self-efficacy
see difficult reading tasks as challenging and work diligently to master them, using
their cognitive strategies productively.
In addition, social motivation for reading relates to children’s interpersonal and
community activities. Children who like to share books with peers and participate
responsibly in a community of learners are likely to be intrinsically motivated readers
(Morrow, 1996; Wentzel & Wigfield, 1998). “Social motivation leads to increased
amount of reading and high achievement in reading (Guthrie, Schafer, Wang, &
Afflerbach, 1995; Wentzel, 1996)” (Guthrie & Wigfield, 2000, p. 408).
Students with high intrinsic motivation, a task orientation, and high self-efficacy are
relatively active readers and high achievers (Guthrie, Cox, Knowles, Buehl, Mazzoni,
& Fasculo, 2000).
Motivational processes are the foundation for coordinating cognitive
goals and strategies in reading. For example, if a person is intrinsically
motivated to read and believes she is a capable reader, the person will
persist in reading difficult texts and exert effort to resolve conflicts and
integrate text with prior knowledge. A learner with high motivation will
seek books known to provide satisfaction. The cognitive abilities
needed to find books, avoid distraction while reading, and assimilate
new ideas are activated if the text is fulfilling internal goals. This is
consistent with both a cognitive science of reading and a situated
account of the acquisition of expertise (Greeno & The Middle School
Mathematics Through Applications Project Group, 1998; Lorch & van
den Broek, 1997), as well as the development of intrinsic motivation
(Deci, 1992). In sum, becoming an excellent, active reader involves
attunement of motivational processes with cognitive and language
processes in reading. (Guthrie & Wigfield, 2000, p. 408).
Regrettably, motivation for reading decreases as children go through school. One
explanation focuses on the capacity of children to understand their own performance.
Children become much more sophisticated at processing the evaluative feedback
they receive, and for some this leads to a growing realization that they are not as
capable as others. “A second explanation focuses on how instructional practices may
contribute to a decline in some children’s motivation” (Guthrie & Wigfield, 2000, p.
408). Practices that focus on social comparison between children, too much
competition, and little attempt to spark children’s interests in different topics can
lead to declines in competence beliefs, mastery goals, and intrinsic motivation, and
increases in extrinsic motivation and performance goals (for a more detailed
discussion, see Eccles, Wigfield, & Schiefele, 1998; Wigfield, Eccles, & Pintrich,
1996).
Declines in interest and competence beliefs regarding English language arts are
pronounced as children enter middle school (Wigfield, Eccles, MacIver, Reuman, &
Midgley, 1991). Oldfather and colleagues (Oldfather & Dahl, 1994; Oldfather &
McLaughlin, 1993) found that students’ intrinsic motivation to read declined as they
went into middle school. Change in motivation reflected changes in classroom
conditions. Children in these studies moved from a self-contained, responsive
classroom that honored students’ voices and where formal grades were not awarded,
to a teacher-centered environment in which students had fewer opportunities for
self-expression and little opportunity for negotiating with teachers about their
learning. These changes led students to become more focused on extrinsic
motivational goals, such as achieving good grades.
The aspects of motivation that have been discussed are distinct from several other
affective attributes of students. First, motivation is distinct from attitude (McKenna,
Kear, & Ellsworth, 1995), which refers to liking for a task. For instance, with respect
to reading, students may report high self-efficacy without liking to read. Some
students report that they are good at reading, but do not like it (Oldfather &
McLaughlin, 1993). Motivation is also distinct from interest, which is usually
associated with a topic, such as outer space, dinosaurs, or military history
(Alexander, Jetton, & Kulikowich, 1996; Schiefele, 1996; Schraw, 1997). In
comparison, motivational attributes are usually more general. The intrinsically
motivated reader is disposed to read a wide range of topics and genres. Third,
readers’ beliefs may also be distinguished from their motivation. Thus, motivation
can be distinguished from other affectively oriented constructs in the individual.
Instructional Contexts for Engagement
Instructional context fosters engagement processes and reading outcomes. This
context is depicted in Figure 1 by the yellow ovals of the outside circle. These
instructional priorities, which are discussed below the figure, all have empirical or
theoretical support (see Guthrie & Alao, 1997; Guthrie, Van Meter, Hancock, Alao,
Anderson, & McCann, 1998).
Figure 1
The Engagement Model of Reading Development
Learning and knowledge goals. Core learning goals are codeveloped by the
teacher and the students in conjunction with external requirements from the school.
Roeser, Midgley, and Urdan (1996) showed that teachers’ learning-goal orientation in
the classroom fostered their students’ self-efficacy. When students believed that
teachers thought that understanding the work was more important than simply
answering correctly, students were likely to believe in their capacity to do the most
difficult work. Students who were learning-goal oriented -- that is, dedicated to
understanding content, using strategies effectively, and linking their new knowledge
to previous experiences -- were likely to be more highly engaged than other
students. In contrast, when students’ goals are dominated by the performance
orientation of seeking to outperform others or to demonstrate competence, they are
less engaged in learning (Dweck & Leggett, 1988). The same is true of students in
classrooms where procedures -- for example, correct completion of a complex series
of steps -- are emphasized (Meece, Blumenfeld, & Hoyle, 1988).
One motivational benefit of learning and knowledge goals is that they provide a
natural context for teaching students to understand conceptually. Although a
mastery orientation in the classroom contributes to motivation (Elliot, 1999; Midgley
et al., 1998), students need a content focus. By providing an opportunity for indepth knowledge acquisition, knowledge goals enable students to use their
motivation for learning. When students gain connections among concepts and
explanatory principles, their interest in the content increases (Alexander, Jetton, &
Kulikowich, 1996).
A second contribution of learning and knowledge goals is that they create the
occasion to support for processes of student autonomy. Concept-based instruction
gives teachers an opportunity to enable students to choose subtopics, select specific
materials for learning (e.g., books), and use strategies that the students believe are
effective for them. These forms of autonomy are motivating for students. In
contrast, materials-based instruction often reduces student autonomy. When
teaching consists of covering a specific set of textbook pages or answering a specific
set of preformed questions, little student autonomy for learning is possible.
Real-world interaction. These interactions refer to learners’ sensory, personal
experiences. The main role of real-world interaction is to evoke intrinsically
motivated behaviors. Students are alert, attentive, and excited in the presence of a
real-world object such as a live reptile, or while viewing the re-enactment of a
historical event. They enjoy looking, asking questions, and discussing what they see.
These intrinsically motivated behaviors create the occasion for active learning and
the acquisition of relevant knowledge. Although this motivation is situationally
stimulated and contextually limited, the motivation can be generalized to new topics
and texts under simple processes of successive expansion (Bergin, 1999).
Real-world experiences usually evoke keen attention and a sense of wonder.
Students are captivated by handling hermit crabs, observing Monarch larvae
metamorphose into butterflies, or catching their own crickets in the school yard. Not
only are they initially curious about these creatures, students begin to study them in
detail, noting their structural features, asking questions about their relationship with
the ecosystem, and doing in-depth research as a result of their personal fascination.
This condition is a motivating context for text-based learning. “Ross (1988)
confirmed these effects in an extensive meta-analysis of literature. He found that
hands-on science activities aroused attention, questions, and active learning”
(Guthrie & Wigfield, 2000, p. 411). Guthrie et al. (1998) found that reading
instruction when embedded within an intrinsically motivating hands-on science
curriculum increased reading comprehension, strategy use, and problem solving in
third and fifth graders. Romance and Vitale (1992) studied an integrated curriculum
that combined reading and hands-on activities in science. In a quasi-experimental
comparison, students in the integrated curriculum scored higher on measures of
reading achievement and science knowledge than did students pursuing a traditional
form of instruction.
To explain these effects, Anderson (1998) reasoned that hands-on science activities
would motivate students to read deeply and, thus, increase their conceptual learning
from text. Her findings showed that students who read texts in association with
hands-on activities had higher comprehension and greater gains in conceptual
knowledge than did students who read the same texts without the intrinsically
motivating context. Further, a year-long intervention study showed that reading
engagement initially learned with intrinsically motivating activities in one knowledge
domain transferred flexibly to a new knowledge domain (Guthrie, Anderson, Alao, &
Rinehart, 1999).
Autonomy support. Autonomy support refers to the teacher’s guidance in helping
students make choices among meaningful alternatives in texts and tasks to attain
the knowledge and learning goals. Studies have confirmed the conventional wisdom
that choice is motivating. Not only is providing choices a prominent practice among
reading teachers (Baumann, Hoffman, Moon, & Duffy-Hexter, 1998), but studies of
elementary school teachers’ beliefs about motivation in general (Nolen & Nicholls,
1994), and reading specifically (Sweet, Guthrie, & Ng, 1998), reveal that they
believe children need choice to develop independence. Turner (1995) found that
teachers who are successful at motivating students often provide myriad choices
during a lesson. Teachers often promote student choice by giving them input into
which books will be read, and what instructional sequence will be undertaken
(Pressley, Rankin, & Yokoi, 1996).
Autonomy support is linked to the condition of students discovering interesting texts
through self-selected reading. When students are supported in choosing from a wide
selection of texts, sustained reading and measured achievement increase (Morrow,
1996). Choice is motivating because it affords students with control. Children seek to
be in command of their environment, rather than being manipulated by powerful
others. This need for self-direction can be met in reading instruction through welldesigned choices.
Teachers’ beliefs about effective strategies for motivating students are remarkably
consistent with the self-determination theory of motivation, which describes the
development of intrinsic motivation in terms of environmental support for the
individual’s need for autonomy, relatedness, and competence (Deci & Ryan, 1985,
1992). Need for autonomy is addressed through support for self-directed learning.
Need for relatedness is addressed in collaborative classroom activities. Need for selfperceived competence is partially fulfilled in evaluation that supports progress
toward goals and reward for effort in learning. When these needs are fulfilled,
students become intrinsically motivated and gain cognitive expertise in reading.
Consistent with this framework, teachers who provide choice (autonomy support),
social interaction (relatedness support), and activity connections (competence
support) support motivational development (Sweet, Guthrie, & Ng, 1998).
Interesting texts for instruction. The phrase “interesting texts” refers to an
ample supply of texts that are relevant to the learning and knowledge goals being
studied. In a study examining readers’ text interest, Wade, Buxton, and Kelly (1999,
online abstract [PDF format]) found that texts with important, new, and valued
information were associated with student interest. Also, it is important that texts be
matched to the cognitive competence of the learners (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). In
elementary classrooms, trade books of diverse levels of difficulty and with a number
of illustrations serve this function. An abundance of texts within the classroom and
links to community resources outside of the classroom, such as libraries and the
Internet, are known to directly facilitate development of motivation (Morrow &
Young, 1997) and increased reading achievement (Guthrie, Schafer, Von Secker, &
Alban, 2000).
By using interesting texts, teachers can support the motivational processes of
mastery orientation and autonomy. In content-oriented reading instruction, it is selfevident that some textual materials must be understood for this orientation to be
sustained (Meece, 1991; Miller & Meece, 1997). This understanding is fostered by
the interest generated from an abundant supply of texts. For example, it would be
extremely difficult for students to engage in critical analysis -- such as comparing
and contrasting conflicting textual information, or interpreting and integrating
differing viewpoints of a topic of study -- without having access to multiple texts to
read.
Strategy instruction. Strategy instruction involves the explicit teaching of
behaviors that enable students to acquire relevant knowledge from text. Explicit
instruction includes teacher modeling, scaffolding, and coaching, with direct
explanation for why strategies are valuable and how and when to use them (Duffy et
al., 1987; Paris, Wasik, & Turner, 1991). Fundamental to most theories of
intrinsically motivated learning is self-perceived competence (Bandura, 1997; Deci &
Ryan, 1987; Harter, 1990). In the domain of reading, students are given a sense of
self-perceived competence when they are taught strategies for learning from text
(Pressley, 1997).
Guthrie and Cox (in press) describe the benefit of embedding direct strategy
instruction in a context of inquiry. They report a successful teacher who helped
students identify the qualities of information books that make them helpful, such as
the tables of contents, indexes, captions, and diagrams. The teacher provided direct
instruction in gaining the main idea from paragraphs. She taught summarizing by
modeling how to locate topic sentences and supporting information. In an inquiry
environment, students learned these strategies readily. However, without the
presence of cognitive and motivational dimensions together, engagement cannot
occur. Teaching for reading engagement is an interlocked composite of teaching
practices that support the merger of motivation and strategies (Guthrie et al., 1996).
Collaboration. This refers to the social discourse among students in a learning
community that enables them to see perspectives and to construct knowledge
socially from text. Many teachers use collaboration to activate and maintain students’
intrinsic motivation and mastery goal orientation.
Teachers believe that social collaboration in the classroom will increase
interest in the content of learning (Hootstein, 1995; Zahorik, 1996)
and maintain active learning over an extended period (Nolen &
Nicholls, 1994). For example, in learning about adaptation in
mammals, different students may elect to investigate the subtopics of
feeding, defense, shelter, and reproduction. As students integrate their
diverse information, they form higher order principles in the topic.
Students can, furthermore, collaboratively learn from texts and
exercise autonomy by choosing who to work with on specific learning
tasks and how to distribute their expertise. Teachers also believe that
collaboration disposes students to read more independently in the
future (Morrow, 1996). (Guthrie & Wigfield, 2000, p. 414).
Praise and rewards. Providing praise and rewards is a pervasive strategy for
encouraging effort and attention. Effective teachers provide informative compliments
that make learners feel a sense of accomplishment and pride in their work.
Wlodkowski (1985) suggests that praise should be “3S-3P”: praise that is sincere,
specific, sufficient, and properly given for praiseworthy success in the manner
preferred by the learner.
Note that teachers’ attempts at effective praise are not always successful. If students
interpret praise as manipulative, their motivation may decline because they feel they
are being treated as objects (Flint, Boggiano, Main, Barrett, & Katz, 1992).
“However, when praise is sincerely given and interpreted as recognition of
achievement, it can increase students’ self-perceived competence and motivation”
(Guthrie & Wigfield, 2000, p. 414).
Evaluation. Classroom instruction that fosters motivation, strategic development,
knowledge gains, and social growth can be undermined by evaluation that
contradicts the instructional purposes. Evaluation activities can be placed on a
continuum from highly objective and standardized (i.e., standardized tests) to highly
student-centered and personalized (i.e., portfolios). Standardized tests are easy to
administer, score, and report to administrators, but they fail to reflect student
ownership, motivation, and reading practices. Portfolios more readily support student
motivation, but are more difficult to administer and report. A combination is likely to
be optimal for meeting the administrative needs of the school and the educational
needs of students.
Several classroom characteristics are necessary for effective student-centered
evaluation.
Teachers must provide ample time for students to think, plan, write,
and revise (Oldfather & McLaughlin, 1993). Writing activities that
invite a wide range of alternative genres and topics are more
motivating than activities that are highly defined and constrained
(Turner, 1995) -- but they are also more time consuming. Guthrie &
Wigfield, 2000, p. 415)
However, if students are empowered to be express themselves, they will develop the
view that knowledge is contextual, and that they can be effective users of strategies
for knowing (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986; McCombs & Whistler,
1997).
Many investigators have suggested that some portion of evaluation should be
directed toward student effort (see, e.g., Ames, 1992; Stipek, 1996). When students
are individually evaluated regarding their personal effort in the classroom rather than
their status in comparison to other students, they are likely to be task centered
rather than grade centered in their view of evaluation (Rosenholtz & Simpson, 1984).
Teacher involvement. The involved teacher knows about the students’ personal
knowledge and interests, cares about each student’s learning, and holds realistic,
positive goals for students’ effort and learning. Skinner and Belmont (1993) found
that when students perceived teachers to be involved (interested in their progress)
and autonomy supportive (providing some control of learning), they were engaged in
the classroom -- for example, participating in class discussions, learning actively, and
appearing happy. Noteworthy was the finding that teacher involvement did not
directly influence outcomes, but it had a significant benefit for student engagement,
which then was significant in the path to student outcomes. Skinner and Belmont
showed, in addition, that the influences were reciprocal: Student engagement
affected teacher involvement as much as teacher involvement influenced student
engagement.
Coherence of instructional processes. Each of the instructional processes has
been discussed in isolation, but there are important connections across them. The
word “coherence” is used to describe these interconnections. When real-world
interactions are closely aligned with interesting texts, coherence is increased. When
students’ engagement in reading is enhanced by coordination of these instructional
processes, coherence in the classroom is occurring at a high level (see Guthrie &
Cox, 1998, for teaching guidelines). When strategy instruction is linked to central
knowledge goals, coherence is present. When collaboration is merged with autonomy
support, coherence rises. When teacher involvement is evident in evaluation,
coherence exists. In coherent instruction, student engagement is increased (Guthrie
et al., 1998), conceptual learning from text is facilitated (Anderson, 1998), reading
achievement is fostered (Romance & Vitale, 1992), and curricular integration of
reading within content areas can be sustained (Gaskins et al., 1994; Santa, 1997).
However, full investigations of the complex interactions among these instructional
practices have been rare.
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Conclusion
I have suggested that characteristics of the classroom influence reading engagement
and motivation. Teachers who aspire to increase engaged reading in the classroom
can do so by building a context for it. To create this context teachers can
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Identify a knowledge goal and announce it
Provide a brief real-world experience related to the goal
Make trade books and multiple other resources available
Give students some choice about the subtopics and texts for learning
Teach cognitive strategies that empower students to succeed in reading these
texts
Assure social collaboration for learning
Align evaluation of student work with the instructional context (e.g., grade
students for progress toward the knowledge goal)
Such a context requires a substantive teaching unit of at least 10 weeks, and
preferably a year.
The literature reviewed in this article is graphically presented in Figure 1.
At the center of the figure is a square containing achievement,
knowledge, and reading practices. Achievement may be represented
by standardized tests scores, teacher-assigned grades, or performance
assessments of literacy. Knowledge acquisition may be indicated
through portfolios or standardized measures. Reading practices may
be reflected in the amount of independent reading, composite
indicators of engagement in reading, or beliefs and preferences about
reading. (Guthrie & Wigfield, 2000, p. 417)
While I believe that engagement in reading increases the occurrence of reading
outcomes (e.g., achievement, knowledge, and practices), I also expect that positive
outcomes increase engagement.
The diamond surrounding achievement, knowledge, and practices refers to the
engagement processes of the reader. One section of the diamond contains
motivation, which includes its multifaceted aspects: goals, intrinsic and extrinsic
motivation, self-efficacy, and social motivation. These aspects propel students to
choose to read and to use cognitive strategies to comprehend. The strategy section
of the diamond refers to students’ multiple cognitive processes of comprehending,
self-monitoring, and constructing understanding and beliefs during reading. The
conceptual knowledge portion of the diamond refers to the research base showing
that reading is knowledge driven. Reading is also a social endeavor, as represented
by the social interaction portion of the diamond. This includes collaborative practices
of learners in a community and the students’ social goals in the classroom.
The message is that increasing long-term reading motivation and engagement does
not result from a quick fix. Reading motivation strong enough to last across weeks,
months, and years is not made in a day. However, when the classroom context
contains the practices shown in the outer ring of Figure 1, reading engagement
grows and becomes self-generating.
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