Attitude is “a readiness to respond or a mental disposition,” which can be acquired by experience (Stokmans, 1999, p.247). It is, on the one hand, an affective concept related to people’s feelings and emotions; on the other hand, it is also a cognitive belief with strong force which may urge people to do some actions responsive to what they believe and how they feel (Stokmans, 1999; Yamashita, 2004). As for reading attitude, it is “a state of mind, accompanied by feelings and emotions, that make reading more or less probable” (Smith, 1990, p.215). When reading teachers encounter reluctant students with reading difficulties, they should consider the possibility that these students may not lack the ability but the will to read.
If the will and the ability are not in the causal relationship, at least these two are highly correlated with each other. Sainsbury (2004) stated, “Children who are enthusiastic readers tend to read more, and this develops their reading ability” (p.15), which is correspondent with Worthy’s (2002) claim: “students who read more become more proficient in reading fluency and comprehension, as well as general vocabulary and cognitive development” (p.568). There are also studies on the relationship between reading attitude and other factors, such as age, sex, reading ability, reading achievement, reading motivation and social status (Baker & Wigfield, 1999;
Camiciottoli, 2001; Engin & Wallbrown, 1983; Kotaman, 2008; Roberts & Wilson, 2006; Sainsbury, 2004; Smith, 1990; Stokmans, 1999; Tse et al., 2006).
2.2.1 Components of reading attitude
Researchers have reached the consensus that reading attitude contains multiple constructs, and most of them are in favor of the viewpoint that reading attitude is a tri-component concept, including cognitive, affective and conative components (Stokmans, 1999; Yamashita, 2004). Since the conative component, the behavioral
inclinations or intentions, is typically excluded from the discussion (Stokmans, 1999), usually reading attitude is treated as a bi-dimensional construct consisting of a cognitive component and an affective component. However, this argument did not completely convince Stokmans. She proposed her own constructs of reading attitude in 1999 by examining the four functions of reading: development and utility, which are related to the cognitive component, as well as enjoyment and escape, which are related to the affective component. Surprisingly, after the factor analysis and the reliability analysis were performed, the results showed that the reliability of the enjoyment, the escape as well as the combined development and utility function is above 0.70, which means reading attitude is neither a bi-dimensional construct nor a four-component concept, but a three-dimensional construct: development and utility as one cognitive component and enjoyment and escape as two independent affective components. With the insightful theoretical argumentation and the in-depth analytical findings about reading attitude, the Stokmans’s reading attitude scale, the instrument used as the pretest and the posttest in the study, is a valid and reliable instrument to examine attitudinal changes in reading.
2.2.2 Stokmans’s reading attitude scale
This scale contains four dimensions, which are the four functions of reading:
utility, development, enjoyment and escape. Each of them consists of six elaborative statements, so the response items of the scale total twenty-four (see Table 2.2). Four statements are negatively formulated while the rest of the items are positively stated.
The first two functions, utility and development, respectively refer to the value placed on “the role of reading for attaining educational or vocational success for managing one’s life” and on “reading to gain insight into self, others, and/or life in general”
(Stokmans, 1999, p.248). They are related to beliefs, knowledge, opinions, information and inferences (Yamashita, 2004), and they belong to one cognitive
component. The last two functions, enjoyment and escape, are defined as “the pleasure derived from reading” and “a means of relaxing and forgetting personal worries” respectively (Stokmans, 1999, p.248). They are concerned with feelings, emotions, and evaluation of the beliefs, and they belong to two different affective components.
Table 2.2. Stokmans’s Reading Attitude Scale
UtilityIn my opinion, book reading is useless.
If I want to succeed in society, I have to read a lot of books.
I don’t read books to improve my ability to converse about particular topics.
By reading a lot of books I can improve my ability to comprehend difficult texts.
Reading books increases my knowledge of the meaning of words.
Sometimes I read books to improve my writing style.
Development
I don’t learn anything by reading books.
I read books to find out more about matters that interest me.
Book reading is of importance in molding an individual’s personality.
Book reading helps me to form an opinion about different issues.
Book reading improves my self- knowledge.
Book reading is a way to learn about other people’s customs and practices.
Enjoyment
Reading books is generally boring.
Reading books is an exciting pastime.
My imagination is barely if at all stimulated by reading books.
When reading a book, I enjoy identifying with a character in the book.
I enjoy daydreaming about the things I have read.
I enjoy transporting myself mentally into another world I’ve read about.
Escape
When I am bored, I read a book.
I often read books to kill time.
I often read books when I have nothing else to do.
(table continues)
Table 2.2. (continued)
Reading books helps me to momentarily forget my worries.
By reading a book, I can briefly escape from the drag of daily routine.
I often read a book when there’s nothing interesting on TV.
When the two widely-adopted reading scales, the Estes reading attitude scale (1971) and the Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (ERAS) (McKenna & Kear, 1990), are compared with Stokmans’s reading attitude scale (1999), the Stokmans’s seems to have a stronger and more solid theoretical background in explaining the constructs of reading attitude. Although the other two scales have been recommended or used in some studies to examine primary and secondary school students’ reading attitude (Kerby, 1986; Matthew, 1996; Roettger, Szymczuk and Millard, 2001), they did not thoroughly probe into the multiple constructs of reading attitude. Estes created his item pool by inviting elementary teachers to contribute to it while McKenna and Kear used several reading attitude scales as models in the creation of their item pool, including the Estes reading attitude scale. Moreover, Stokmans’s reading attitude scale focuses only on the nature of reading itself rather than on actions or beliefs related to reading as the other reading scales do (Stokmans, 1999):
First…in this study the object is reading and not buying or possessing.
Although this seems obvious, many reading attitude scales entail beliefs about reading behavior and beliefs about books and visiting bookstores…
Secondly…The domain does not necessarily specify contexts, for example, recreational reading, academic reading…or periods, for example, Easter holidays...In this study, the context of the domain is specified in global terms. (p.252)
For instance, the fourth and the ninth response items of the ERAS relate to beliefs about books and visiting bookstores: “How do you feel about getting a book for a
present?” and “How do you feel about going to a bookstore?” These two statements, in fact, are not directly related to reading attitude. In the Estes reading attitude scale, the similar item, “Books make good presents” (refer to the nineteenth statement), can also be found. Instead of using global terms to describe the domain of reading attitude, McKenna and Kear explicitly specify both the contexts and the periods. They specify the contexts by presenting the ERAS in two parts: recreational reading and academic reading. They also specify the periods by stating the items as “How do you feel when you read a book on a rainy Saturday?” (refer to the first statement) and “How do you feel about reading during summer vacation?” (refer to the seventh statement). Such specification of the contexts and the periods may confuse respondents when they determine if the statements are completely or partly true to them, which is highly probable to influence the validity of the reading scale. Therefore, Stokmans’s reading attitude scale seems to be more valid than the other two in terms of measuring reading attitude.