ACHIEVEMENT DIFFERENCES AND GENDER GAPS IN READING MOTIVATION: AN EXAMINATION OF TAIWANESE ADOLESCENT READERS OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

This study has two aims: one is to examine whether or not there are individual differences in motivation to read English as a Foreign Language (EFL) among Taiwanese adolescents, and the other is to scrutinize whether or not a gender gap exists among those readers. A total of 252 adolescents, half of them female and the other half male, participated in the overall study, while eight of them took part in the study's qualitative portion. The data consisted of background information, scores from an EFL test, questionnaires, and interviews. The results show a significant main effect on EFL reading achievement in all of the eight aspects of reading motivation investigated, as well as a main effect on gender difference in favor of female readers, particularly in their social motivation. These fmdings imply that struggling EFL readers are likely to suffer from multiple deficiencies in terms of their motives for reading and that teaching motivation in EFL classrooms appears to be crucial, in particular, for those struggling readers.