engleski

Gender differences in individual and situational interest: relation to reading comprehension and academic achievement

The aim of the study was to examine gender differences in individual and situational interest for narrative and expository texts, as well as relation between two aspects of interest in eight-grade students. The aim was also to examine the relation of individual and situational interest to reading comprehension and academic achievement. The participants were eight-grade elementary school students: 102 boys and 99 girls. As measures of individual interest Reading involvement and Interest for reading scales based on the Motivation for Reading Questionnaire (Wigfield, Guthrie & McGough, 1996) were used, as well as Attitude toward recreational reading, and Attitude toward academic reading scales from The Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (McKenna & Kear, 1990). Text comprehension was assessed on one expository and one narrative text. After reading each text, and before answering text comprehension questions, situational interest i.e. text interestingness and difficulty was assessed on 5-point scale.GPA and grade in Croatian language were used as indicators of academic achievement. Obtained results showed that girls have higher individual interest in reading and higher situational interest in narrative text than boys, while boys showed more situational interest for expository text than girls. Reading involvement had positive effect on text comprehension as well as academic achievement regardless of gender. However, positive attitudes toward recreational reading were positively related to academic achievement, but only for girls.

individual and situational interest; reading comprehension; narrative text; expository text; academic achievement

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