Reading comprehension is a complex but important skill to function well in society. Reading motivation is of great importance in the development of reading comprehension skills. International tests...Show moreReading comprehension is a complex but important skill to function well in society. Reading motivation is of great importance in the development of reading comprehension skills. International tests shows that the reading skills and reading motivation of secondary school students has deteriorated in recent years. The aim of the current research is to examine the reading motivation of students in higher professional education and university. First, the influence of the Standard of Coherence on the reading comprehension level of students was investigated. The Standard of Coherence is a collective term for intrinsic reading motivation, extrinsic reading motivation, the desire to read difficult texts and the desire to understand texts. Secondly, it was investigated to what extent the Standard of Coherence differs between students in higher professional education and university. Participants were 47 Dutch students, of which 25 students from higher professional education and 22 students from university. All students completed a questionnaire as a measure of the reader's Standard of Coherence. In addition, the reading comprehension level of the students was determined by means of the inference test and CBM-Maze test. The results show that the individual elements of the Standard of Coherence as well as the Standard of Coherence itself are not significant predictors of the reading comprehension level. In addition, the results don’t show that the Standard of Coherence differs between students in higher professional education and university. Follow-up research should clarify the extent to which reading motivation decreases with the transition from secondary school to further education and the role of gender in the relationship between the Standard of Coherence and the reading comprehension level. Based on the current results, teachers are advised to continue to offer scientific literature in higher professional education and university in a comparable way as they are used toShow less
