The impact of short stories, as an extrinsic reward, in an intensive reading environment on learners’ intrinsic motivation, reading motivation and performance

Abstract

The present thesis purports to scrutinize the long-term impact of a literacy-related reward, as a type of extrinsic rewards, in intensive reading activities on learners’ intrinsic motivation, reading motivation, and performance. This work, thereupon, is built upon three exploratory hypotheses. If an extrinsic reward (short stories) is delivered for meeting a standard of excellence in the reading comprehension activities, then learners’ intrinsic motivation would be increased; if an extrinsic reward (short stories) is offered for successful reading comprehension performance, then learners’ reading motivation would be boosted; and if an extrinsic reward is administered for learners’ successful performance in the reading comprehension activities, then learners’ performance would be improved. To validate the preceding hypotheses, a sample of 91 second year students, drawn from a population size of 671 LMD students of English as a foreign language, at the Department of Letters and English Language-Mentouri University-Constantine, was assigned to two experimental conditions. In the no-reward condition, the subjects were involved in reading and performing intensive reading activities, whereby the reward was the enjoyment inherent in the experimental activities. In the reward condition, the subjects performed intensive reading activities; their successful performance was rewarded tangibly by a short story. The intrinsic motivation inventory was administered at the end of the two experimental conditions to quantify their situational levels of intrinsic motivation with regard to the target tasks. In like manner, the motivation to read profile was correspondingly administered to statistically determine their pre- and post-reward reading motivation, and, by the same token, the pre-post-tests to compare between their pre-and post-reward reading comprehension performance.The major findings show that there is a statistically significant difference between the two experimental conditions, indicating that short stories can be good incentives to enhance undergraduate EFL students’ intrinsic motivation(t(5.69)=1.65,p>0.05) and performance(t(11.27)=1.65,p>0.05); however, there was no room for short stories to heighten their reading motivation(t(0.77)=1.65,p<0.05).