Presentation Schedule
Universal and Group-Specific Pathways from Reading Motivation to Comprehension (104880)
Session Chair: Kevin Tan
Thursday, 26 March 2026 15:35
Session: Session 4
Room: Room 604 (6F)
Presentation Type: Oral Presentation
Reading motivation plays a critical role in college students' academic success, yet research often overlooks how diverse ethnic backgrounds shape motivational processes and reading outcomes. Grounded in the Expectancy-Value-Cost model, this study examined relationships among reading motivation, reading amount, and reading comprehension across three ethnic groups of American college students, with particular attention to whether reading amount mediates the relationship between motivation and comprehension differently across groups. Participants were 1,360 college students representing three ethnic groups: White American (n = 680), African American (n = 340), and Hispanic American (n = 340) students from public universities in the United States. Reading motivation was assessed using expectancy, value, and cost dimensions. Reading amount for enjoyment and reading comprehension were measured using validated instruments. Path analysis examined direct and indirect effects within each ethnic group, while multigroup path analyses tested whether effect magnitudes differed across groups. Results revealed both ethnic similarities and differences in motivational pathways. Expectancy beliefs directly predicted reading comprehension across all three ethnic groups, demonstrating a universal cognitive pathway. However, value and cost beliefs operated differently across groups. For White American and Hispanic American students, value and cost indirectly influenced reading comprehension through reading amount, indicating that motivational beliefs shaped how much students read, which in turn affected comprehension. In contrast, African American students showed a direct effect of cost on reading comprehension, bypassing reading amount entirely. Despite these pathway differences, multigroup analyses revealed similar effect magnitudes across groups.
Authors:
Hitomi Kambara, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, United States
Yu-Cheng Lin, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, United States
Hung-Chu Lin, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, United States
Po-Yi Chen, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan
About the Presenter(s)
Dr. Hitomi Kambara is an Associate Professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in the United States.
See this presentation on the full schedule – Thursday Schedule
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