Effects of Classroom Practices on Reading Comprehension, Engagement, And Motivations for Adolescents

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Reading Research Quarterly, 49(4)pp. 387416 | doi:10.1002/rrq.81 2014 International Reading Association

A B S T R A C T

We investigated the roles of classroom supports for multiple motivations and

engagement in students informational text comprehension, motivation, and

engagement. A composite of classroom contextual variables consisting of in-

structional support for choice, importance, collaboration, and competence,

accompanied by cognitive scaffolding for informational text comprehension,

was provided in four-week instructional units for 615 grade 7 students. These

classroom motivational-engagement supports were implemented withinintegrated literacy/history instruction in the Concept- Oriented Reading

Instruction (CORI) framework. CORI increased informational text comprehen-

sion compared with traditional instruction (TI) in a switching replications

experimental design. Students perceptions of the motivational- engagement

supports were associated with increases in students intrinsic motivation,

value, perceived competence, and increased positive engagement (dedica-

tion) more markedly in CORI than in TI, according to multiple regression anal-

yses. Results extended the evidence for the effectiveness of CORI to literacy/

history subject matter and informational text comprehension among middle

school students. The experimental effects in classroom contexts confirmed

effects from task-specific, situated experimental studies in the literature.

The purpose of this study was to examine the extent that languagearts instruction embedded with explicit supports for studentengagement and motivation in the form of Concept-Oriented

Reading Instruction (CORI) increases information text comprehensionand student motivation, in comparison with traditional instruction (TI).Distinctly from previous research on CORI, which investigated literacyintegrated into science, this study examined integrated literacyhistoryinstruction. Also, it builds on prior studies by examining CORI in themiddle school context rather than the elementary school context.Moreover, this study uniquely used a within-subjects experimental de-sign that more rigorously controls individual differences of students,teachers, and classrooms than previously employed quasi-experimentaldesigns. We also examined whether the students perceptions ofmotivation-supporting practices were associated with increases in mul-tiple constructs of motivation and engagement in CORI and TI.

Literature Review andTheoretical Framework

Description of CORIThe central goal of the current version of CORI was to provide lan-guage arts instruction integrated with history content, emphasizing

John T. GuthrieUniversity of Maryland, College Park,USA

Susan Lutz KlaudaNational Council on Teacher Quality,

Washington, DC, USA

Effects of Classroom Practices onReading Comprehension, Engagement,

and Motivations for Adolescents


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388 | Reading Research Quarterly, 49(4)

the Civi l War for middle school students. We aimed toassure that students were engaged in reading informa-tional text in class and for homework. Engaged read-ing with informational text refers to active textinteraction in which students are seeking conceptualunderstanding of complex topics. In this pursuit, stu-dents are energized by internal motivations such asintrinsic motivation, value, and perceived compe-tence. They believe that reading extensively and deeplyis beneficial to them in the immediate present.Engaged readers are strategic, using cognitive toolssuch as concept mapping to organize text-basedknowledge, and they socially share the knowledgeconstruction process and products with classmatesand other audiences. CORI was intended to enablestudents to be engaged in reading, text-based writing,and discussion for at least 75 minutes in a 90-minutereading/language arts period. Materials were mainlyinformational texts; as defined by Duke (2000), these

texts contain descriptions of the natural and socialworlds that are presented as factual. Biographies wereused extensively. Intensive teacher planning wasneeded to empower students into this academicliteracy.

In this middle school CORI implementation, fourmotivational-engagement supports were provided byteachers: (1) competence support (to assure perceivedcompetence), (2) providing choice (to increase in-trinsic motivation), (3) emphasizing importance ofreading (to foster value), and (4) arranging collabora-tion (to increase amount of engaged reading activ-

ity). The practice of competence support refers toteacher actions that build perceived competence byproviding texts that are readable, providing feedbackon accomplishment, recognizing students knowl-edge gained from reading, and helping students setrealistic goals. Note that although we measured stu-dents perception of the practice, we did not trainteachers to provide competence support explicitlybecause of their level of familiarity with it and ourlimitations of time and resources. The practice ofproviding choice refers to affording self-selection ofbooks or sections of books, inviting student inputinto subtopics of study, providing options for demon-

strating learning, and self-selecting partners forreading. The practice of emphasizing importance re-fers to affording concrete experiences of buildingknowledge from text, asking students to explain topeers how reading complements videos, or relatingtext ideas to personal background knowledge. Thepractice of arranging collaboration refers to enablingstudents to read as partners, exchange ideas fromtext, lead discussion groups, participate in groupprojects such as poster making, and exchange feed-back with peers.

Previous Studies of CORIs Effectson Achievement, Motivations,and EngagementPrior CORI studies at the elementary level focused onthe simultaneous implementation of the following prac-tices: providing choices (of books, learning tasks, or

ways of showing reading proficiency), arranging col-laborations (partnerships, team projects), supportingcompetence (matching text difficulty to learner compe-tencies, adjusting learning tasks to student needs), andoffering relevance (hands-on science activities, authen-tic audiences for writing, personal persuasive essays).Emphasizing importance (helping students recognizetext as their primary source of learning) was added forthe middle school level (Guthrie, Klauda, & Ho, 2013).These motivational-engagement practices were com-bined with direct strategy instruction.

Previous evidence of CORI effectiveness was based

on equivalent-groups quasi-experimental designs com-paring students receiving CORI with other studentswho received TI or strategy instruction. Selected find-ings from a meta-analysis of 11 studies and 75 compari-sons showed that CORI had effect sizes of the following:0.91 for standardized reading comprehension, 0.73 forexperimenter-constructed informational text compre-hension, 1.20 for intrinsic motivation, 0.49 for self-efficacy, and 0.49 for amount of reading. In this study,we used a within-subjects design, termed switching rep-lications, in which all students received both CORI andTI in counterbalanced order. This design is quite sensi-tive to the instructional treatment because all studentand teacher variables that might be confounded withthe instruction are necessarily controlled. For thisstudy, our first expectation was that CORI would be as-sociated with higher informational text comprehensionachievement than TI would.

In prior research, influences of CORI on readingachievement, motivations, and engagement have beenattributed to the composite of motivational practicescombined with strategy instruction (Guthrie, McRae,& Klauda, 2007). In that work, little attempt was madeto identify the extent that motivational and engage-ment supports are linked to increases in motivations

apart from their combination with strategy instruc-tion. In this investigation, we assessed students per-ceived instructional emphasis on four motivationalpractices in both CORI and TI. It is clear that teachersin TI employ practices to motivate students, and we ex-pected to observe positive effects of these practices inboth instructional contexts. However, because CORIprovides specific guidance for teachers in using themotivational-support practices, we expected them tohave more benefits for students motivation and en-gagement in CORI than similar practices in the TI


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framework which did not provide such guidancewould. Thus, our second expectation was that studentsperceived level of motivational-engagement supportwould increase motivation and engagement more inCORI than in TI.

Theoretical Perspectives onMotivation and Engagement

Rationale for MultipleMotivational-Engagement SupportsCORI is essentially a pedagogy, consisting of sets of in-terleaved procedures for fostering students acquisitionof academic literacy. To increase motivation in a briefclassroom intervention, we drew on four theoreticalframeworks to identify motivational-engagement sup-ports. CORI incorporates those practices directed to-

ward specific motivations consisting of the following:autonomy support for intrinsic motivation, emphasison importance for valuing reading, success and goalsetting for self-efficacy, and collaborative activities forsocial motivation. Their frameworks are briefly statednext.

Each of the following theories forwards a central or-ganizing motivational construct, with proposed envi-ronmental supports. First, self-determination theoryproposes that intrinsic motivation, consisting of self-direction and positive affective involvement (Zhou, Ma,& Deci, 2009), generates behavioral engagement in a do-

main such as reading (Ryan & Deci, 2009). In this per-spective, the authors recommend autonomy support inthe classroom, referring to shared control between theteacher and students. When teachers encourage studentsto provide input into instruction, and link their intereststo learning activities (Zhou et al., 2009), students com-mitments (motivation) and participation (engagement)are expected to increase, which enhances their achieve-ment (Reeve, 2012).

Second, expectancyvalue theory (Eccles & Wigfield,2002) places the motivational construct of value at thecenter of its formulation. In reading, value is the per-ceived importance of reading, which may encompass

utility benefits or intrinsic merits of the domain. An in-dividuals value for reading predicts academic success,in the form of course grades, and involvement, in theform of behavioral engagement in reading (Durik, Vida,& Eccles, 2006). Experimentally, investigators haveshown the effects of describing how information in thetext would provide immediate professional benefitfor the readers. Groups receiving emphasis on the bene-fits of a text showed enhanced behavioral engagement(close attention to reading) and increased conceptualcomprehension of informational text compared with

no-rationale groups (Jang, 2008; Reeve, Jang, Hardre, &Omura, 2002). Furthermore, asking students to findpersonal usefulness and applicability in math activitiesand math class increased students performance in bothlaboratory and classroom settings compared with con-trol conditions (Hulleman, Godes, Hendricks, &Harackiewicz, 2010).

Third, sociocognitive theory (Bandura, 2001) pre-sents self-efficacy as a driving motivational constructthat influences an individuals aspirations, resilience,and self-regulated activity (Schunk & Mullen, 2012).Self-efficacy refers to expectations for success in the fu-ture and logically depends on perceived competence,which refers to judgment of ones current capacity forreading well (Chapman & Tunmer, 1995). There is highsimilarity among self-efficacy, self-concept of ability(Kurtz-Costes, Ehrlich, McCall, & Loridant, 1995), andperceived competence, all of which correlate positivelywith reading proficiency and reading volume (Katzir,

Lesaux, & Kim, 2009). One study showed that self-efficacy and perceived competence formed one psycho-metric factor in a variety of domains for high schoolstudents (Hughes & White, 2011). In this study, we em-ployed the construct of perceived competence becauseof its advantages for unequivocal measurement amongyoung adolescents, and we relate it to the literature onself-efficacy because of the conceptual similarity of theconstructs. Studies have shown that providing compe-tence support through feedback on progress and help-ing students set realistic goals in specific reading tasksincreases self-efficacy for the academic domain of read-

ing (Schunk & Zimmerman, 2007). Competence sup-port may also appear in the form of using disciplinarytexts, such as science trade books, that enable studentsto build text meaning related to their observations andknowledge of the world while learning reading skills(Guthrie et al., 2007).

The fourth conceptual framework is activity theory(Leontiev, 1981), which emphasizes shared cognitive ac-tivity. Also contributing to this framework are Scribnerand Cole (1981), who focused on the acquisition ofculturally significant literacy practices, based onVygotskys (1978) view of collaborative scaffolding inthe zone of proximal development. Extended to class-

rooms by Gutirrez and Lee (2009), this perspectivehighlights the collaboration between teachers and stu-dents and among students that empowers students toacquire literacy practices and accompanying cognitiveproficiencies (Scribner & Cole, 1981). In the absence ofpersonal connections, students engagement declines,leading to disengagement (Griffiths, Lilles, Furlong, &Sidhwa, 2012) and dropping out of school (Rumberger,2011). Thus, collaborations of teachers and students andamong students were expected to influence studentsreading motivations and engagement.


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Rationale for Affirming andUndermining Forms of Motivationand EngagementEngagement in academic work such as reading has oftenbeen defined and measured in the positive form.Behavioral engagement at school has been described as

time, effort, and persistence in academic activity(Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004). This is akin tothe view of Skinner, Kindermann, and Furrer (2009)that engagement is a fusion of behavior and positive af-fect. We use the term dedication to refer to the positiveform of behavioral reading engagement. Dedication isthe commitment of time, effort, and perseverance toreading activities. Because reading is inherently cogni-tive, some of the effort in behavioral engagement is cog-nitive. However, there is a distinction between behavioraland cognitive engagement. Cognitive engagement is in-tention and effort in performing critical feedback loops

in self-regulated learning that are cognitive and meta-cognitive in nature (Cleary & Zimmerman, 2012).Dedication entails a commitment to doing the readingbut not necessarily optimizing the cognitive or metacog-nitive effectiveness of the reading. Furthermore, dedica-tion is not devoid of motivation but relies heavily onintrinsic motivation, perceived competence, and value,as shown in this study, as well as other motivations(Reeve, 2012).

Some researchers have also investigated engagementin negative forms of disengagement (Juvonen, Espinosa,& Knifsend, 2009) or disaffection (Skinner et al., 2009),which correlate negatively with achievement. Referringto attempts to evade academic work and minimize ef-fort, avoidance has been shown to correlate negatively toreading achievement in elementary school (Baker &Wigfield, 1999) and middle school (Long, Monoi,Harper, Knoblauch, & Murphy, 2007). However, engage-ment and disengagement are not simple opposites, asthey correlate at about 0.65 for middle school students,sharing about 40% of their variance. This moderatecorrelation is due to a substantial proportion of studentswho report low engagement (not actively participatingin reading) and low avoidance (not evading necessarywork).

Motivational constructs have also been studied intheir affirming and undermining forms. For example,perceived difficulty of reading and self-efficacy bothcontributed unique variance to achievement in primary-age children, although their measures appear to benearly polar opposites (Chapman & Tunmer, 1995).Likewise, devaluing has been associated with achieve-ment independent of other motivations (Legault, Green-Demers, & Pelletier, 2006). Although devaluing appearsto be the inverse of valuing, a moderate correlation be-tween them has been observed (Guthrie et al., 2013). An

inspection of scatterplots revealed that portions of stu-dents report both valuing and devaluing reading, pos-sibly because of the diversity of texts and reading tasksin schools.

In light of their potentially semi-independent con-tributions, we investigated the extent that affirmingand undermining motivations and both the positiveform of engagement (dedication) and the negative formof engagement (avoidance) were associated with class-room motivational support.

Processes of Disciplinary LiteracyAccording to C. Shanahan, Shanahan, and Misischia(2011), central processes in disciplinary reading includecontextualization, corroboration, sourcing, text struc-ture, graphic elements, and critique, all of which occurin both history and chemistry. Reisman and Wineburg(2008) also emphasize contextualization, focused on

perspective taking. In CORI, we used secondarysources, consisting of trade books and biographies, ex-cept for a very few iconic documents such as theEmancipation Proclamation. In previous versions ofCORI using biology, the texts were similar, consistingof secondary trade books and textbooks, as well asstudent-generated inquiry notes and outcomes.

In both history and science, CORI placed a priorityon the process of perceiving text structure, as repre-sented in a hierarchical pyramid. This requires effortfullearning but yields dividends in comprehension.History and science share this dominance of pyramid

structures. Across the CORI unit, main ideas includedeconomics, politics, leadership, culture, and militaryfactors. Concept maps in pyramid shape were builtfrom text for each main idea with respect to causes ofthe Civil War and a second set for outcomes of the war.Students filtered biographies into the structures to showindividuals contributions.

A second process of disciplinary literacy that ishighly relevant to our study is contextualization. Tofoster this process, students performed a culminatingproject in which each team adopted either theNorthern or Southern perspective to describe the out-comes of the Civil War. This viewpoint determined

students interpretations of costs and benefits of mili-tary, economic, political, and cultural outcomes. Forexample, from the Southern perspective, the eco-nomic losses in the South led to widespread povertyand continued political defiance. But from theNorthern perspective, Southern economic losses rep-resented new entrepreneurial opportunities duringReconstruction.

At this level, contextualization is quite similar inreading history and science. A text consisting of thecell could not be observed because it was too dark


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has different meanings depending on whether it is aleaf cell or a prison cell. The type of leaf or the loca-tion of prison also influences interpretation. Thesecontextual effects are profoundly important to under-standing a large majority of informational texts(Meyer et al ., 2010) in science or history. Consequently,we believe that teaching these processes to seventhgraders will be useful across subject matter areas.Such broad contextualization processes that are gen-eral to history and science can be measured and arecorrelated with diverse reading required in highschool (Ozuru, Dempsey, & McNamara, 2009) andstandardized tests in prior CORI studies (Guthrieet al., 2004). Consequently, it is the generalizable textstructuring and contextualization processes widelyneeded in history and science reading that we incor-porated into CORI.

Issues for This InvestigationThis study extends prior CORI research by using his-tory (U.S. Civil War) as the subject matter context,whereas all previous CORI studies by this team usedscience topics of ecology, symbiosis, adaptation, bio-diversity, and endangered species (Guthrie et al., 2007,2013). Also, this study examined middle school stu-dents, whereas all previous studies except Guthrieet al. (2013) included students in grades 35 only.Finally, this study uniquely investigates associationsof student perceptions of teachers motivationalsupport with changes in student motivation andengagement.

Questions for Investigation

1. To what extent does CORI that integrates historywith literacy instruction enable students to ac-quire competencies in informational text com-prehension in history more effectively than TIfor reading/language arts for middle schoolstudents?

2. To what extent does the set of CORI practices ofemphasizing support for competence, choice,value, and collaboration facilitate motivation and

engagement in comparison with TI for middleschool students?

Hypotheses

1. Students provided with CORI will show higherinformational text comprehension in historythan students provided TI.

2. Students perceived level of motivational-engage-ment support will increase motivation and en-gagement more in CORI than in TI.

Method

ParticipantsThe participants were 615 grade 7 students attendingfour middle schools in a rural public school district of amid-Atlantic state during the 20102011 school year.

They were instructed by 11 reading/language arts teach-ers. Although all 1,200 seventh graders in the districtcompleted the study measures, student data were notanalyzed for seven reading/language arts teachers. Twoteachers were excluded because one moved and a secondtaught CORI during both cycles of the study, to com-plete the CORI unit for the teacher who moved. In addi-tion, three teachers entered the school in the middle ofthe academic year and could not be provided the twohalf-days of professional development, which was givenonly at the end of the preceding summer according toschool policy, and two teachers were below the thresholdin implementation, as described in the instructional

fidelity section. Students taught by the remaining 11teachers were additionally excluded if their parentswithheld consent for their data to be used (26 students),patterns in the students responses to the study measuresindicated that they did not follow instructions (15 stu-dents), or they were suspended or engaged in home-schooling during any portion of the study (fourstudents). Finally, students were excluded if they hadIndividualized Education Plans (IEPs; 94 students) be-cause they were provided with a wide variety of instruc-tional interventions within and outside the classroomsthat the researchers could not supervise or guide.

The final student sample was 47.0% male, 78.9%European American, 16.7% African American, 3.4%Asian American, and 1.0% other ethnicities or un-known. A total of 20.3% of students were eligible forfree and reduced-price meals (FARMs). Less than 1%was receiving English as a second language instruction.The total grade 7 population in the school district was50.4% male, 75.0% European American, 19.8% AfricanAmerican, 3.3% Asian American, and 1.9% other eth-nicities, and 27.3% was receiving FARMs and less than1% receiving English as a second language instruction.The studied sample had lower percentages of males,African Americans, and receiving FARMs than the full

district sample did. We do not claim that the samplerepresented the school district but that the samples re-ceiving the two instructional treatments did not differin any demographic characteristic, which was assuredby the switching replications design.

The 11 teachers who instructed the final samplewere 10 European American females and one AfricanAmerican female. Their teaching experience rangedfrom one to 28 years, with a median of eight years.Their range of experience teaching at their currentschool was one to 22 years, with a median of five years.


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The highest degree earned by three teachers was a mas-ters; the rest held bachelors degrees.

DesignWe used a switching replications experimental designto investigate the effects of a composite of motivational-engagement supports on informational text compre-hension achievement (hypothesis 1). According to awidely used methodological text, The SwitchingReplications design is one of the strongest of the experi-mental designs (Trochim, 2006, para. 5). Each studentparticipates in the treatment group and the controlgroup. The implementation of the treatment is repeatedor replicated. In the repetition of the treatment, the twogroups switch roles; the original control group becomesthe treatment group in phase 2, while the original treat-ment group acts as the control. In this study, each stu-dents increase in text comprehension is compared

under the treatment and control conditions. All indi-vidual differences of preexisting ability, interest, atten-tion, comprehension, or demographic factors arecontrolled precisely. Each person, with all of his or heridiosyncrasies, is given both the treatment (CORI) andcontrol (TI) conditions. In this situation, individual dif-ferences cannot be confounded with the instructionalcondition. Note that it is unnecessary to use a between-subjects control (e.g., a covariate) in this procedure.

According to Shadish, Cook, and Campbell (2002),the switching replications design is strong because it con-trols most threats to internal validity, and it enhances ex-

ternal and construct validity (p. 192). Previously calledthe within-subjects experimental design (Winer, 1962),the switching replications design controls for preexistingindividual differences more effectively than a random-ized design does because students are compared withthemselves. Switching replications designs have been usedeffectively in experimental studies of reading comprehen-sion strategy instruction for seventh-grade students(Bulgren, Marquis, Lenz, Deshler, & Schumaker, 2011),instruction in basic reading processes (Huemer, Mikko,Landerl, & Lyytinen, 2010), an intervention to promotecivic engagement (Dabelko-Schoeny, Anderson, & Spinks,2010), and instruction for math achievement (Bottge,

Rueda, LaRoque, Serlin, & Kwon, 2007).The switching replications design is advantageous

when teachers or administrators want all students toparticipate in the instructional treatment, which wastrue in our study. In this design, half of the students re-ceived CORI first, while others were the control group,and half received CORI second, while the original ex-perimental group became the control. Not only are allstudents included, but schools also only need to allocateenough resources to give the program to half of thestudents at a time.

In this design, classes were randomly assigned togroup 1, which received CORI first and TI second, orgroup 2, which received TI first and CORI second. Allteachers taught the same students in both instructionalapproaches, and all students received both instructionaltreatments. The data analysis to examine the effects ofinstruction on text comprehension was a repeated mea-sures ANOVA.

Measures

Reading Motivation and EngagementWe constructed a self-report survey that inquired aboutstudents reading motivations, defined as beliefs, val-ues, and goals related to reading, and their reading en-gagement, defined as time, effort, and persistence inreading activities (Guthrie, Wigfield, & You, 2012) intheir reading/language arts class for the previous fourweeks. We wrote the 42 items in the measure, or six

items for each of seven constructs. Each item had fourresponse options: not at all true of me, not very trueof me, somewhat true of me, and very true of me.Three of the seven constructs represent affirming moti-vations for reading, or motivations typically associatedpositively with achievement, whereas two constructsrepresent undermining motivations for reading, or mo-tivations typically associated negatively with achieve-ment (Legault et al., 2006).

The conceptual bases for the constructs are drawnfrom multiple theoretical perspectives. First, among theaffirming motivations, intrinsic motivation reflects in-

terest and enjoyment in reading and the desire to readoften (Gottfried, Fleming, & Gottfried, 2001). The sec-ond affirming construct was value, or the belief thatreading is important and useful for ones future(Trautwein, Ldtke, Schnyder, & Niggli, 2006). Thethird affirming construct, perceived competence, is be-lief in ones capacity to complete reading tasks success-fully (Schunk, 2003). One undermining construct,devalue, refers to the belief that reading is not impor-tant or useful for ones success or future (Legault et al.,2006); the other, perceived difficulty, is the perceptionthat reading tasks are difficult (Chapman & Tunmer,1995). The undermining constructs were used for de-

scriptive correlational purposes and were not used totest the hypotheses. For purposes of parsimony in thestatistical analyses, the affirming constructs, whichcorrelated moderately positively, were used in a com-posite to test hypothesis 2.

The final two constructs represented behavioralforms of engagement (Fredricks et al., 2004) in reading:the positive construct of dedication, which emphasizespersistence, effort, time expenditure, and intention tolearn from reading (Guthrie et al., 2012), and the nega-tive construct of avoidance, which emphasizes having


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an aversion toward reading and, therefore, minimizingthe time and effort expended on it (Meece & Miller,2001). All items for each engagement and motivationalconstruct are presented in Appendix A.

Exploratory factor analyses were conducted to final-ize the motivation subscales, using data from the April(second) administration of the measure. We conductedprincipal components analyses with varimax rotationseparately for each construct. The number of eigenvaluesgreater than 1, scree plot, and variance explained,and factor loadings 0.40 were evaluated when con-structing scales. The Cronbachs values for each scalein March, April, and June, respectively, were: intrinsicmotivation = .88, .72, and .88; value = .78, .79, and .79;perceived competence = .75, .78, and .82; devalue = .79,.81, and .81; and perceived difficulty = .80, .81, and .81.Each of these scales correlated with two measures of en-gagement, dedication and avoidance, and informationaltext comprehension, showing predictive validity (Guthrie

el. al, 2013). Cronbachs values for the engagementscales in March, April, and June, respectively, were as fol-lows: dedication = .79, .81, and .82; and avoidance = .84,.85, and .88. In a prior study, both dedication and avoid-ance were significantly correlated with informationaltext comprehension prior to intervention, showing pre-dictive validity (Guthrie et al., 2013).

Perceptions of InstructionWe constructed a self-report questionnaire represent-ing four constructs to assess students perceptions of

their reading/language arts teachers classroom prac-tices and supportive behaviors during the previous fourweeks of instruction. First, importance support con-sisted of teacher emphasis on the value and utility ofreading and writing as expressed in the expectancyvalue theory (Eccles & Wigfield, 2002). Choice supportconcerned the provision of significant opportunities forautonomy and self-direction in reading (Zhou et al.,2009). Collaboration support comprised the fostering ofcooperation and interpersonal relations both betweenstudents and their teachers and among students withinthe context of reading and writing (Wentzel, 2010). Thefourth construct, competence support, was defined as

encouraging students to succeed in reading by provid-ing instrumental help and verbal reinforcement.Competence support was measured with 12 items basedon previous measures that assessed student perceptionsof supportive help, expectations, feedback from teach-ers, and instrumental help (Skinner & Belmont, 1993).The response options for all perceptions of instructionitems were strongly disagree, slightly disagree,slightly agree, and strongly agree. Cronbachs val-ues for the scales were as follows in March, April, andJune, respectively: importance support = .74, .82, and

.84; choice support = .67, .75, and .77; collaboration sup-port = .72, .80, and .81; and competence support = .74,.76, and .81.

Reading FluencyThe WoodcockJohnsonIII Reading Fluency Test

(Form C in March, Form B in April, and Form A inJune) was employed. This test gives students three min-utes to silently read as many sentences as they can, indi-cating whether each one is true or false. In other words,this assessment evaluates speed of reading and literalunderstanding at the individual sentence level. Rawscores (number correct minus number incorrect) wereconverted to standardized scores for use in analyses.The measure showed testretest reliability correlationsof 0.83 for both MarchApril and AprilJune.

Informational Text Comprehension

The overall ability to comprehend informational textwas assessed with a researcher-developed measure, re-flecting a view of informational text comprehension asan interactive process that leads to literal understand-ing, as well as formation of a structured network ofknowledge representing the information in the text,fused with the readers prior knowledge and experi-ences related to the text topic. The assessment consistedof two 60100-word and three 250300-word passageson historical topics that differed from the topics of in-struction. The shorter passages were at fifth- to seventh-grade reading levels, whereas the longer passages were

at eighth-grade to college reading levels. Each passagewas followed by five multiple-choice items, for a total of25 items. The items for the shorter passages requiredexact or near paraphrases of text, which, at most,involved linking information in two consecutivesentences. There were four item subtypes: literal under-standing, word in context, phrase understanding, andbasic conceptual understanding. The items for the lon-ger passages required more complex reasoning and textanalysis, involving integration of two or more consecu-tive or nonconsecutive text propositions with eachother and/or background knowledge. There were fiveitem subtypes for these passages: main concept, sub-

concept, relational understanding, partial passage syn-opsis, and full passage synopsis (see Appendix B).

Three alternate test forms were employed, with onecommon or linking passage across forms and fourunique passages per form. The forms were counterbal-anced so students received different forms at each as-sessment point, and approximately equal numbers ofstudents received each form. Due to low itemtotal cor-relations (


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scores were calculated. Raw scores on the three formswere equated for difficulty at each timepoint throughlinear equating (Crocker & Algina, 1986). In accord withLivingston (2004), linear equating rather than item re-sponse theory equating was employed, as the assump-tions of linear equating were more realistic, and thebenefit of flexibility offered by item response theory(e.g., for creating adaptive tests) was not relevant for thepresent study. Because the item deletions resulted in un-even numbers of items per form, the raw scores were cal-culated and equated in the form of percentage correctvalues (Livingston, 2004). As there were only four link-ing items that were not completely representative of therest of the test items, the linking items were excluded inthe initial calculation and equating of raw scores.

The final percentage correct scores were calculated byweighting raw percentage correct scores on the linkingitems by 4 (the number of linking items) and weightingequated percentage correct scores on the unique passage

items by the number of those items on a given form (i.e.,18 for Form A, 20 for Form B, 19 for Form C). Cronbachs values for each form were as follows in March, April,and June, respectively: Form A = .70, .75, and .73; Form B= .73, .76, and .76; and Form C = .74, .75, and .79. Althoughthis was the first study with this scale, a highly similarscale in science text comprehension had significant cor-relations with grades in reading/language arts and flu-ency, showing predictive validity (Ho & Guthrie, 2013).

Procedures for Data Collection

The assessment battery was administered to students intheir usual reading/language arts classrooms by theirteachers, with oversight and assistance from project per-sonnel, three times during the school year: the weekprior to the first CORI intervention (March), the weekafter the first four-week CORI intervention concludedand before the second CORI intervention commenced(April), and the week after the second CORI interven-tion concluded (June). Testing occurred during studentstwo daily 45-minute reading/language arts periods onone day at each assessment point. Project personnel ad-ministered the tests to absent students in small groupson the day following each primary assessment, if possi-

ble. For each assessment, the test administrators readaloud directions and reviewed sample items, then stu-dents completed each assessment silently, with stricttime limits for all but the motivation assessments. Theassessments were administered in the following order:information text comprehension (22-minute time limit),perceptions of instruction (510 minutes), motivation/engagement (710 minutes), WoodcockJohnsonIIIReading Fluency Test (3-minute limit), and inferencing(12-minute limit). Demographic data were obtainedfrom the central office of the school district.

Instructional Conditions

CORIA total unit framework for CORI on the topic U.S.Civil War: Causes and Outcomes is provided inAppendix C. Across the four-week period, it displaysingredients of motivational-engagement support, strat-

egy instruction, content concepts, and the central textfor instruction of on-grade, struggling, and advancedreaders. Also displayed is a weekly framework, showingthe activities and instruction for week 1.

For this CORI unit, there is a knowledge superstruc-ture in pyramid form. At the apex is the main idea, thecauses and outcomes of the Civil War. Subordinated to itare key concepts, consisting of culture, economics, lead-ership, politics, beliefs, military, and slavery. With theseconcepts and evidence/examples for each, students readto explain first the causes and then the outcomes of thewar. For example, the victory and/or defeat in a given

battle can be explained with this concept structure.Contributions of visible characters, such as HarrietTubman, can be represented by using these integrativeconcepts. For example, in week 1, days 13, the dailydriving questions for instruction were What were thesimilarities and differences in the economies of theNorth and the South? (Monday); What were the keyaspects of Northern and Southern cultures? (Tuesday);and How do you explain the different views about slav-ery in the North and the South? (Wednesday). In thesense that full text comprehension entailed perceivingthe causes and outcomes of the Civil War from eitherthe Northern or Southern perspective, the studentsreading may be characterized as disciplinary literacy (T.Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008). However, the assessmentof informational text comprehension did not require ahigh level of perspective taking, although it demandedmultitiered knowledge structuring, which is also neededfor fully comprehending middle school science texts.

In this middle school CORI implementation, fourmotivational-engagement supports were provided byteachers: competence support (to assure perceived com-petence and reduce perceived difficulty), providingchoice (to increase intrinsic motivation), emphasizingimportance of reading (to foster value and decrease de-

valuing), and arranging collaboration (to increase eachmotivation). Practices were expected to increase dedi-cation (positive engagement) and reduce avoidance(disengagement).

The practice of competence support refers to teacheractions that build perceived competence by providingtexts that are readable, providing feedback on accom-plishment, recognizing students knowledge gained fromreading, and helping students set realistic goals. Notethat although we measured students perception of thepractice, we did not train teachers to provide competence


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support explicitly because of their level of familiaritywith it and our limitations of time and resources. Thepractice of providing choice refers to affording self-selection of books or sections of books, inviting studentinput into subtopics of study, providing options for dem-onstrating learning, and self-selecting partners for read-ing. The practice of emphasizing importance refers toaffording concrete experiences of building knowledgefrom text, asking students to explain to peers how read-ing complements videos, or relating text ideas to personalbackground. The practice of arranging collaboration re-fers to enabling students to read as partners, exchangeideas from text, lead discussion groups, participate ingroup projects such as poster making, and exchangefeedback with peers. The rationale for placing themotivational-engagement supports in weekly order wasthat teachers could focus and implement them morereadily than if we expected teachers to implement themsimultaneously. Teachers scaffolded each type of

motivational-engagement support as they would cogni-tive support.

Within CORI for middle school history, teachersprovided cognitive scaffolding in the forms of strategyinstruction for inferencing, summarizing, and conceptmapping. We selected inferencing because informationaltexts are often densely packed forms of discourse, andstudents cannot easily link background knowledge tothem. We selected summarizing because students mustbuild hierarchies of knowledge on a firm basis of accu-rate text representation. Finally, we selected conceptmapping because it enables students to restructure text-

based and prior knowledge and imbue them with causaland temporal linkages. Each cognitive strategy wastaught with direct instruction consisting of teacher mod-eling, scaffolding, and guided practice in the strategywith a variety of texts on the conceptual theme. Studentswrote inferences, summaries, and concept maps. Theycollected them with project notes in individual portfoliosand displayed them in their culminating posters. We se-quenced these tasks from simple to complex and basedthem on smaller to larger amounts of text. This assuredinitial success and ultimate complexity in students cog-nitive processing of new informational texts.

Books on the Civil War unit consisted of expository

trade books on policies, battles, economic issues, andleaders, as well as biographies of individuals and por-traits of groups such as African American soldiers andwomen. These ranged in length and difficulty from 40pages at the grades 35 levels for struggling readers to5070 pages at the grades 68 levels for on-grade stu-dents. We compiled a set of articles from history jour-nals at grade 9 to college levels in 70 pages of 8.5 11sheets in a smaller font for the honors students. Eachclass had three titles as class sets, 10 titles as group sets,and 19 individual books for independent reading.

Videos of Civil War topics were drawn from theDiscovery Channels online service, United Streaming,and were provided to teachers on flash drives. Segmentsof four to eight minutes were used to stimulate interestand afford background knowledge. In weeks 14, re-spectively, the frequencies of the videos were reducedfrom five to three to two to none. The real-world con-nections provided by the videos were no longer neededby week 4.

Daily instruction typically began with 15 minutesof whole-class instruction centered on the knowledgegoals of the week and day. Teachers helped students un-pack complex guiding questions and relate them toprior work. For each cognitive strategy, comprehensioninstruction began with whole-class modeling of cogni-tive strategies, initially lasting 20 minutes and gradu-ally decreasing to no time by the end of the week. At thebeginning of each class, motivational-engagement sup-port was organized and explicitly announced. For ex-

ample, during the emphasis on collaboration support,teachers communicated, You will be working as part-ners today, or You will work with your team, and youshould pay attention to working well with your class-mates. Approximately 15 minutes of guided readingwas provided for struggling readers, on-grade readers,and advanced readers, in that order. When they werenot in guided reading groups, students either performedtext-based writing or independent reading. Studentswere placed into flexible groups by the teacher in con-sultation with the instructional resources teacher ineach school.

TITI was provided by the same teachers to students inreading/language arts classes during the control periodfor each class. This was instruction as usual in theschool. Teaching resembled the Directed ReadingThinking Activity framework (Stauffer & Harrell,1975). Goals of this instruction for literary text compre-hension included understanding character develop-ment, plot, symbolism, and themes. A well-knownanthology of literature was used, which included infor-mational texts such as description of historical settings

for stories and characters. Typically, students discussedthemes from previously read sections of text, read newsections, and interacted socially to represent them asaccurately as possible. Teachers provided cognitive scaf-folding for analysis of episodes and integration ofsalient texts. Students shared their opinions aboutcharacters actions and traits. Informational text com-prehension was taught by scaffolding students in thecognitive skills of analyzing and summarizing letters,documents, and historical background to explicate lit-erary texts.


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Instructional goals for informational text readingincluded the following (see Appendix D):

Apply comprehension skills by selecting, reading,and interpreting a variety of print and nonprintinformational texts, including electronic media.

Analyze important ideas and messages in infor-mational text.

Read critically to evaluate informational text.

Read orally at an appropriate rate.

Read grade-level text with both high accuracy andappropriate pacing, intonation, and expression.

Develop and apply vocabulary through exposureto a variety of texts.

Apply a conceptual understanding to new words.

Understand, acquire, and use new vocabulary.

Apply comprehension skills through exposure to

a variety of print and nonprint texts, includingtraditional print and electronic texts.

Goals were placed on the blackboard or whiteboarddaily. These goals for informational text reading wereshared in both TI and CORI.

During class, TI teachers typically began with a re-view of the previous two or three lessons and providedan overview of the literary or informational text for theday. Students then volunteered to read several text pagesaloud individually. Teachers asked focused questions onthe particulars of plot, character in literature, or con-cepts with evidence in the knowledge structure. About70% of the questions could be answered with close textinspection, whereas 20% were open or conjectural,leading to free-ranging discussion. Issues of theme wereraised in 23% of the questions, and direct readingstrategy instruction consumed about 23% of theteacherstudent interactions. During about 25% of theclasses, writing was emphasized, including personalnarrative, exposition, and text summaries. To supportwriting, two or three genre-specific goals were dis-cussed, posted, and graded for each type of composi-tion. Monthly writing grades were given.

Assessments of class progress were given, consistingof three to five short constructed-response questionsweekly. Teachers graded about 50% of these on three-level rubrics of outstanding, acceptable, and needsimprovement. Homework was given daily, consistingof reading several pages in the anthology, and posted onthe board. Students read about 10 pages per week, whichenabled them to finish the anthology of about 400 pagesand also read Internet sources of about 2025 pages peryear. Grades were based on written assessments, com-positions, class participation, and class attendance.

Teachers were monitored and coached by the in-structional reading leader and the principal. They madeannounced classroom observations and held personalconversations with a few teachers while attending weeklyteam planning meetings occasionally. Meetings were of-ten data based, with attention to class progress and espe-cially performance of low-achieving or special educationstudents. Special education services were provided in theform of part-time assistants within and outside the class-rooms for the large majority of students with IEPs. About2% of students with IEPs were taught reading/languagearts in a targeted program in a different location.

TI did not include guidance for explicit motivational-engagement supports, although some teachers occasion-ally afforded opportunities for choice of texts andcollaborative discussion. In both CORI and TI, informa-tional texts and cognitive scaffolding for them were pro-vided. Although motivational-engagement support wasnot denied to students in TI, it was less emphasized by

most teachers, as shown in the students perceptions of in-struction described in the Instructional Fidelity section.

Professional DevelopmentProfessional development in CORI was provided fortwo half-days to all teachers. We began with a CORIminilesson, in which teachers experienced the samemotivational-engagement supports and strategy in-struction that CORI provides to students. Two staffmembers worked with all teachers and instructionalleaders to provide professional development in afford-ing motivational-engagement support, implementing

strategy instruction, selecting books for diverse stu-dents, and managing groups. A teachers guide was pro-vided, which teachers adapted slightly to meet classroomconstraints. Use of portfolios, rubric-based feedback,and portfolio grading were discussed.

Instructional FidelityOne indicator of the extent to which the teachers imple-mented the two instructional conditions according tothe designs for motivational-engagement support wasstudents perceptions of instruction. As described pre-viously in this Method section, students completed pre-

and postinstructional questionnaires for both CORIand TI. We conducted a repeated measures ANCOVAwith the students perceptions of each motivational-engagement support as the dependent variable and theorder of instruction (CORI first vs. TI first) as the inde-pendent variable, along with the covariates of gender(1 = male; 2 = female), income (0 = did not receiveFARMs; 1 = received FARMs), and reading fluency.These covariates were used due to their known associa-tion with reading comprehension (National Center forEducation Statistics, 2011).


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Although the analysis necessarily controls for levelsof the covariates, we attempted to determine whetherthe covariates interacted with the independent variable.We did not compute a multivariate ANOVA because wewere theoretically interested in each of the three in-structional practices. However, as we tested the threevariables (choice, importance, and collaboration sup-port) that we expected to influence informational textcomprehension, we applied the Bonferroni correctionfor multiple tests and accepted results as significantwhen p < .02. Although we conducted an ANCOVAwith competence support as the independent variable,this was a separate analysis as a discriminant validitycheck, as we did not include this in the design for CORI,

and consequently was not included in the count of testsfor the Bonferroni correction.

With the students perceptions of the instructionalpractice of affording choice as the dependent variable,the ANCOVA showed no main multivariate effect oftime. There was a signif icant interaction of time and or-der of instruction, F(2, 539) = 12.84,p < .001, as shownin Figure 1a. The other effects were not statistically sig-nificant. For students receiving CORI first, perceivedchoice support increased substantially in the first pe-riod and decreased slightly in the second period. Forstudents receiving TI first, perceived choice decreasedslightly in the first period and increased markedly inthe second period. This shows that perceived choice

FIGURE 1

Student Perceptions of Four Instructional Support Practices in Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) andTraditional Instruction (TI) at Three Timepoints: (a) for Choice, (b) for Importance, (c) for Collaboration, and

(d) for Competence

2.7

2.8

2.9

3

3.1

3.2

Time 1 Time 2 Time 3

PerceivedChoiceSupport

2.55

2.6

2.65

2.7

2.75

2.8

2.85


PerceivedImportanceSupport

2.8

2.9

3

3.1

3.2

3.3

3.4

3.5


P

erceivedCollab.

Support

2.3

2.4

2.5

2.6

2.7

2.8


PerceivedComp

etenceSupport

(a)

(c)

(d)(b)

Note.Solid line = CORI first; dashed line = TI first.


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support increased substantially during CORI and thatperceived choice support decreased slightly during TI.This occurred for students regardless of whether stu-dents received CORI or TI first.

To examine students perceptions of the instruc-tional practice of emphasizing importance as the de-pendent variable, the ANCOVA showed no mainmultivariate effect of time. There was a significant in-teraction of time and order of instruction, F(2, 540) =7.59,p < .001, as shown in Figure 1b. The other effectswere not significant. For students receiving CORI first,perceived emphasis on importance increased slightly inthe first period and decreased markedly in the secondperiod. For students receiving TI first, perceived em-phasis on importance decreased markedly in the firstperiod and increased slightly in the second period. Thisshows that support for perceived importance increasedslightly during CORI and that perceived importancedecreased substantially during TI. This occurred for

students in both orders. There was a significant interac-tion of order, time, and gender, F(2, 540) = 3.05,p < .05,in which females showed the pattern of the full group,and males with TI first showed the same pattern, whilemales receiving CORI first declined in importance per-ception in both instructional conditions. The othereffects were not statistically significant.

With students perceptions of the instructionalpractice of arranging collaboration as the dependentvariable, the ANCOVA showed no main multivariateeffect of time. There was a significant interaction oftime and order of instruction, F(2, 545) = 35.32, p

Effects of Classroom Practices on Reading Comprehension, Engagement, And Motivations for Adolescents

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