| Abstract | Students with an immigration background tend to show similar or sometimes even higher intrinsic motivation compared to their native peers (Kigel, McElvany, & Becker, 2015, Miyamoto, Pfost, & Artelt, 2018; Villiger, Wandeler, & Niggli, 2014). Despite relatively strong learning orientations, immigrant students tend to have, on average, significantly lower reading achievement compared to their native peers, even after controlling for families' educational and socio-economic backgrounds (OECD, 2010). The motivation-achievement paradox, or a seemingly weaker relationship between intrinsic motivation and reading competence for immigrant students in comparison to their native peers, is a puzzling phenomenon. Although a similar phenomenon has been reported for related constructs in previous research (e.g., Hill & Torres, 2010 for aspiration-achievement paradox; Mickelson, 1990 for attitude-achievement paradox), few research has investigated possible mechanisms behind this phenomenon. In addition, it is important to disentangle this paradox as there may be practical implications with the aim of helping immigrant students improve their reading achievement. Thus, the goal of my dissertation is to provide a theoretical and empirical explanation for a reason why immigrant students may have more difficulties in translating their relatively strong intrinsic motivation into their reading achievement compared to their native peers. In order to achieve this goal, three empirical studies were conducted. Study 1 investigated the measurement invariance of intrinsic motivation between native and immigrant students as well as the directionality of the relationship between intrinsic motivation and reading competence for native and immigrant students. The study confirms the (configural and metric) measurement invariance of intrinsic motivation between native and immigrant students, which is a necessary condition for comparing the strength of the relationship between intrinsic motivation and reading competence across these groups. The measurement invariance of intrinsic motivation between native and immigrant students supports the conceptual similarity of the construct between groups, indicating that these groups do not seem to differ in their interpretations of the items measuring intrinsic motivation. The study also provides strong empirical support for the reciprocal relationship between intrinsic motivation and reading competence for students without an immigration background. This is in line with previous research (McElvany, Kortenbruck, & Becker, 2008; Schiefele, Stutz, & Schaffner, 2016) which showed that higher intrinsic motivation tends to lead to an increase in reading competence, while greater reading competence also tends to foster intrinsic motivation (i.e., the reciprocal effects model). In contrast, within the immigrant sample, the relationship between intrinsic motivation and reading competence was not found to be reciprocal. Although there was a positive and significant effect of earlier reading competence on later intrinsic motivation, initial intrinsic motivation did not significantly predict subsequent reading competence. This finding indicates that, for immigrant students, higher reading competence may facilitate intrinsic motivation while promoting intrinsic motivation may not substantially contribute to the development of reading competence (i.e., the skill-development model). Study 2 examined the mediating processes of how intrinsic motivation is transformed into reading achievement through the amount of reading and metacognitive knowledge of strategy use. In addition, the study tested whether these mediating processes can be generalized to the students with an immigration background. The study provides strong empirical evidence for the mediating roles of reading amount and metacognitive knowledge of strategy use in the relationship between intrinsic motivation and reading competence. Importantly, these mediating effects were also found for students with an immigration background, indicating that the mediating processes of how intrinsic motivation transforms into reading achievement can be generalized to students with an immigration background. The finding suggests that intrinsically motivated students tend to improve their reading competence by spending more time on reading activities and using more effective strategies, and these mechanisms seem to be true regardless of students' immigration background. Study 3 investigated the role of destination language exposure as a key to account for the observed ethnic differences in the relationship between intrinsic motivation and reading competence. The study confirms a significant positive interaction effect between intrinsic motivation and exposure to the destination language on reading achievement, while also taking into account cognitive ability, gender, age, and educational levels as well as socio-economic background of parents. The result suggests that the more immigrant students are exposed to the destination language at home, the more successful they seem to turn intrinsic motivation into reading achievement. In addition, the initially weaker link between intrinsic motivation and reading achievement for Turkish and FSU students compared to Polish students became no longer significant after including the interaction effect between intrinsic motivation and exposure to the destination language in the model. The finding indicates that the observed ethnic differences in the relationship between intrinsic motivation and reading achievement, at least partly, can be attributed to the differences in the amount of destination language exposure. In other words, the motivation-achievement paradox of immigrant students may be partially explained by their limited opportunities to use the destination language outside school. Within the framework of the German National Educational Panel Study, 4,619 secondary school students were included in the analyses. The present study confirmed the reciprocal cross-lagged effects between intrinsic reading motivation and reading competence from grades 5 to 7 for native students. In addition, the effect of grade 5 intrinsic reading motivation on grade 7 reading competence was mediated by grade 6 reading amount. However, for immigrant students, although the cross-lagged effect of grade 5 reading competence on grade 7 intrinsic reading motivation was significant, the reverse effect was not significant. The present findings suggest that intrinsic reading motivation seems to be essential for the development of reading achievement for native students whereas it seems to be of less importance for immigrant students. (Orig.). |
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