Motivación hacia la lectura y comprensión lectora en estudiantes de quinto año de Educación General Básica de unidades educativas fiscales de Cuenca, en el periodo de 2022-2023

Abstract

The motivation for reading can influence how one comprehends a text. In Ecuador, reading comprehension continues to be one of the primary barriers to cultural progress, as evidenced by statistics. This concern led to the conduct of this quantitative correlational research study. The general objective was to determine the existing relationship between reading motivation and reading comprehension among fifth-grade students in General Basic Education, within the framework of the project "Development of Reading Skills and Emotional Intelligence," during the 2022-2023 period. A total of 128 students from five public educational institutions in Cuenca participated. The research employed the MRQ (Motivation for Reading Questionnaire) and PROLEC-R (Reading Comprehension Test) as measurement instruments. The results revealed a greater prevalence of certain intrinsic and extrinsic dimensions. Concerning comprehension tasks, it was observed that more than half of the students (51.6%) experienced mild difficulties in sentence comprehension, while the majority received "Normal" ratings in both text comprehension (69.5%) and oral comprehension (72.7%). In the correlation analysis, a significantly negative relationship was found between certain dimensions of motivation and the tasks related to semantic processes. In conclusion, the results indicated that students' reading habits are primarily motivated by significance and curiosity. Additionally, both mild and severe difficulties in sentence comprehension were observed, and a significant relationship between motivation and comprehension could not be established.