An investigation of the effectiveness of a program developed based on self-determination theory on increasing student's motivation to read among second grade guidance school students

This study investigated the effectiveness of a program developed on the basis of self-determination theory and supporting student’s psychological needs -competence, autonomy and relatedness- to promote reading motivational constructs- self-efficacy, interest and social interaction. To this end, 71 second-grade school boys of guidance school from two classes were chosen and were randomly assigned to control and experimental groups. Then program performed for 35 students in 8 sessions of 60 minutes -5 sessions for whole class discussion and 3 sessions for group activities – with different texts of Persian Language- ancient fiction, modern prose and short story. Researcher- made questionnaire was used for assessing reading motivation. To determine the significant differences of the students of experimental and control groups’ responses McNemar test was used and content analysis was used to analyze the students’ answers to open-ended questions of the questionnaire. The result indicated that the program increased students’ reading self-efficacy, reading interest and social interact. Also the results of content analysis showed that students participated in this program became familiar with three new ways of confronting with reading difficulties: discussion with peers, refer to dictionary and text questioning. In addition, students’ interest to ancient fiction and short story increased.