Jessie De Naeghel

Former member associated with the research group 'Language, learning, innovation', within the Department of Educational Sciences, Ghent University.

Reading motivation

Late elementary education

The past decades, research has increasingly pointed to the importance of students' reading motivation for achieving reading success.  Students' reading motivation - and in particular reading for pleasure or out of interest - is positively related to their reading behavior and reading performance and in this respect contributes to the acquisition of important competences to participate in our society. The observed downward trend in intrinsic reading motivation of students throughout their school career is disturbing in this regard. That is why in my research I focused on reading motivation of students at the end of primary education. 

I obtained a PhD in Educational Studies (Ghent University) in 2013 with my dissertation "Autonomous reading motivation: A study of related factors and promotion strategies at the end of primary education". I focused on three central challenges: 1) conceptualizing reading motivation, 2) clarifying the relationships between reading motivation, reading behavior and reading performance, and 3) identifying and evaluating new strategies to counteract the downward trend in intrinsic reading motivation. These challenges led to the development and validation of a questionnaire (SRQ Reading Motivation) to map the autonomous and controlled reading motivation of students and the development and evaluation of a workshop for teachers that focuses on promoting autonomous reading motivation of students in the  context of the classroom.

Publications and conferences