Student Attitudes Towards Extensive Reading: : A mixed methods study about Swedish upper secondary school students' attitudes andperceptions of extensive reading in English

Sammanfattning

This essay aims to investigate Swedish upper secondary school students' perceptions about their attitudes and motivation towards extensive reading in English. Further, this essay also aims to investigate students' attitudes towards self-selected reading as a potentially more motivational classroom strategy in comparison to teacher-selected reading. The main research questions addressed are 'What are Swedish upper secondary school students' attitudes to extensive reading in English?' and 'Do the students perceive self-selected reading to be more motivational than teacher-selected reading?'. The hypothesis is that students recognize learner autonomy to have a positive effect upon their reading attitudes and therefore prefer self-selected reading materials. Through collecting data using mixed methods consisting of 40 questionnaires and seven interviews, and further analyzing this data using qualitative content analysis and descriptive statistics, this study presents several findings. The results show that students’ attitudes are mixed: students are both more positive and negative towards extensive reading in English than for reading in general. Through further comparing the students' attitudes regarding the two reading selection practices—self-selected or teacher-selected reading—this study shows that 90% of students believe that self-selected reading would positively impact their reading enjoyment. Additionally, the results also imply that it is not necessarily learner autonomy that students perceive as likely to improve their reading attitudes, but that they rather just want their reading materials to align with their personal interests. This degree project essay concludes that many of the students are not feeling intrinsically motivated to read in their English class, and are thus relying on extrinsic factors for motivation instead, such as grades, which leaves them with negative reading experiences and attitudes. Finally, some pedagogical implications in relation to this study's findings are discussed.