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Wu LI / The motivation of adolescents’ social reading：A case study of middle school students’ reading via WeChat in Shanghai 147

1992, the American National Reading Research Center was funded for a 5-year term (Alvemann &
Guthrie, 1993, p. 15), and with this sponsorship, Guthrie, Alvermann and their colleagues started
to study reading from the engagement perspective (Guthrie & Alvermann, 1999), which integrates
cognitive, motivational, and social aspects of reading (Baker, Afflerbach, & Reinking, 1996).
The NRRC-sponsored studies led to the development of quite a few new instruments (Chapman
& Tunmer, 1995; Gambrell, Palmer, Codling, & Mazzoni, 1996; Wigfield & Guthrie, 1997),
among which Motivation for Reading Questionnaire (MRQ) developed by Wigfield and Guthire
(1997) has been widely used. To assess more systematically the dimensions of reading motivation,
Baker and Wigfield (1999) conducted confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) with a larger sample
and concluded that all of the motivation scales had good internal consistency except the Work
Avoidance scale. However, MRQ has also been criticized by other researchers. For instance,
Watkins and Coffey (2004) pointed out that there were several serious methodological limitations
in the study on CFA conducted by Baker and Wigfield (1999). Using a double CFA cross-
validation, they found out eight factors for reading motivation and suggested that the MRQ should
be revised. Additionally, Chinese researchers from Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland revised the
original MRQ using their local samples (Huang, 2002; Lau, 2004; C. Y. Liu, 2007; Y. T. Song, P. Y.
Liu, & Jian, 2003).

1.2 Digital reading motivation

With the development of new technologies, different reading types including digital reading,
online reading and mobile reading come into people’s life. Despite the different titles, these types
overlap to a great extent. Compared to the traditional paper reading, these new reading types
have a common feature of digital texts and digital representation. Social reading belongs to the
digital reading family, combining the digital texts and the interactive functions provided by social
media. According to Chen (2002), different media had a great impact on readers’ motivation and
behaviors. By far, researchers have been concerned about the reading behavioral change in the
digital age, but few have worked on the particular issue of digital reading motivation. Furthermore,
the scarce investigations mainly focused on the particular group of college students rather than
adolescents.
Based on a questionnaire survey of online reading by college students in Chinese Mainland, Cai
(2013) pointed out that the online reading motivation was a multidimensional construct, consisting
of social interaction, affection, information seeking, improving literacy, and reading interests. Tang
(2012) classified digital reading motivation into intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation in the
case study of college students in Taiwan. Another empirical study working on vocational college
students in Taiwan concluded that they read online to exhibit self-efficacy, overcome reading
challenges, and share information with others (M. Z. Zheng, 2011). W. Li (2011) investigated