The Impact of Korean University EFL Learners’ Reading Strategies and Motivations on Performance

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This research examines the effect of motivation and reading strategies on EFL readers’ performance in a university setting. More specifically, the research draws upon the constructs of motivation and reading strategies, taken together, in order to test whether or not each category of the reading strategies functions as mediation between motivation and reading proficiency. Four subscales of motivation and three subscales of reading strategies were administered to the research participants (N=168). Data were drawn from EFL learners registered for EFL reading courses at a Korean university. Data collected were subject to stepwise regression analyses for the constructs at hand in an investigation of the magnitudes of prediction according to each of the subtypes of motivation and reading strategies. For motivation, the strength of motivation was found to be the most powerful influence on reading achievement. For reading strategies, global strategy turned out to be the prime determining factor in reading proficiency. When hierarchical regression analyses were performed in order to place each category of reading strategies under scrutiny in terms of mediation between motivational strength and reading achievement, only the category of global strategy served as a partial mediator between these two variables. The Sobel (1982) test further confirmed that global strategy does function as a mediating factor.