The relationships of recreational and academic reading behaviours, reading self-efficacy, and reading competence among Hong Kong bilingual undergraduates

Abstract

Objectives. The present study investigated the relationships among recreational and academic reading behaviours, reading self-efficacy, and reading competence in Chinese as a first language (L1) and in English as a second language (ESL). In particular, the L1 and ESL reading characteristics and patterns of Hong Kong bilingual undergraduates, the influences of the recreational and academic reading contexts, and the role of reading self-efficacy would be carefully examined. Method. The participants were 222 Chinese-English bilingual undergraduates from a university in Hong Kong including 83 males and 139 females with a mean age of 20.75. Participants were asked to fill out an English questionnaire to assess their reading frequency, reading engagement, and reading self-efficacy with regard to their L1 and ESL reading. After the completion of questionnaire, they were instructed to complete two reading comprehension tests in 20 minutes to evaluate their Chinese and English reading competence. Results. The results of repeated measures ANOVA and paired sample t-tests showed that students read more often in English for studies but were less engaged in it. The correlation analyses revealed context-specific and cross-contextual relationships among reading behaviours. Several positive associations were also found among reading behaviours, reading self-efficacy, and reading competence within and across languages. The SEM suggested the significant contribution of recreational reading behaviours to enhance reading self-efficacy in ESL reading. The mediating role of reading self-efficacy in both L1 and ESL reading was confirmed by the mediation analyses via bootstrapping. Conclusions. The findings indicated that the contextual factors influenced ESL reading in which students benefited the most from recreational reading behaviours in terms of having higher reading self-efficacy. In addition, the positive association between reading behaviours and reading competence was mediated by reading self-efficacy in both L1 and ESL reading. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings were discussed.