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Papers by Stephen Tonks

Research paper thumbnail of Early Academic Success in College: Examining the Contributions of Reading Literacy Skills, Metacognitive Reading Strategies, and Reading Motivation

Journal of College Reading and Learning

Research paper thumbnail of Confirmation of the Factor Structure of an Autonomous Reading Motivation Measure for Middle School Students

Proceedings of the 2019 AERA Annual Meeting

Research paper thumbnail of A computer adaptive measure of reading motivation

Journal of Research in Reading, 2020

Background: The importance of reading motivation has led to the development of a large number of ... more Background: The importance of reading motivation has led to the development of a large number of self-report reading motivation measures; however, there is still a need for a usable measure of adolescent reading motivation that captures a large number of theoretically and empirically distinct constructs. Methods: The current paper details the development and validation of a computer adapted measure of reading motivation, the Adaptive Reading Motivation Measure (ARMM), which assesses constructs of curiosity, involvement, interest, value, challenge, grades, recognition, competition, avoidance, self-efficacy, perceived difficulty, preference for autonomy, social motivation, prosocial goals and antisocial goals for reading. Results: Model fit indicated that hierarchical multidimensional models fit better than models without a hierarchical structure. The validation results indicate that females scored higher than men and younger students scored higher than older students on most ARMM scores when scores were derived using a higher order model. In addition, these scores correlated significantly to reading behaviour, engagement and achievement and indicated high reliability. Conclusions: The findings suggest that the ARMM would be a valid measure to assess a large number of reading motivation constructs in a short period of time within a classroom setting.

Research paper thumbnail of Developing Self-Regulated Readers through Instruction for Reading Engagement

Handbook of Self-Regulation of Learning and Performance, 2013

11 Developing Self-Regulated Readers through Instruction for Reading Engagement Stephen M. Tonks ... more 11 Developing Self-Regulated Readers through Instruction for Reading Engagement Stephen M. Tonks Northern Illinois University Ana Taboada George Mason University During this week Ms. Baker and her fourth grade students are focusing on the science concept of life ...

Research paper thumbnail of Expectancy-Value Theory

Research paper thumbnail of From Spark to Fire

The processes of change in children’s reading motivation have not been widely studied. We investi... more The processes of change in children’s reading motivation have not been widely studied. We investigated whether situated interest for a specific book may lead to longer-term intrinsic motivation for general reading. Two schools with 120 grade 3 students filled out reading logs identifying their reasons for reading their favorite books twice. In addition, students completed general motivation and comprehension measures as a pre-assessment and as a post-assessment. Students who increased in their level of situated interest in an information book over time increased in their general reading motivation from September to December. Also, students who decreased in their level of situated extrinsic motivation for reading a narrative book decreased in general extrinsic motivation. It appeared that children’s changes in situated motivation predicted their changes in general reading motivation, within an instructional context that supports engagement and motivation in reading.

Research paper thumbnail of youths' growing self-confidence and personal resourcefulness in acquiring the skills needed for adulthood. In his chapter, he discusses the attainment of self-regulation in terms of four levels of learning specific skills: observation, emulation, self-control, and self-regulation. According to this

Research paper thumbnail of Faculty Practices in Assigning and Evaluating Students Writing Assignments

Research paper thumbnail of Expectancy-Value Theory

Research paper thumbnail of Children's Motivation for Reading: Domain Specificity and Instructional Influences

The Journal of Educational Research, 2004

The authors discuss the nature and domain specificity of reading motivation and present initial r... more The authors discuss the nature and domain specificity of reading motivation and present initial results that examined how 2 reading instructional programs, Concept Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) and multiple Strategy Instruction (SI), influenced 3rd-grade children's intrinsic motivation to read and reading self-efficacy. Each reading program occurred during the fall of the school year and lasted 12 weeks. Approximately 150 3rd-grade children participated in CORI; 200 3rd-grade children participated in SI. Results of pre-and posttest analyses of children's responses to a reading motivation questionnaire showed that children's intrinsic motivation to read and reading self-efficacy increased only in the CORI group.

Research paper thumbnail of Increasing Reading Comprehension and Engagement Through Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction

Journal of Educational Psychology, 2004

Based on an engagement perspective of reading development, we investigated the extent to which an... more Based on an engagement perspective of reading development, we investigated the extent to which an instructional framework of combining motivation support and strategy instruction (Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction-CORI) influenced reading outcomes for third-grade children. In CORI, five motivational practices were integrated with six cognitive strategies for reading comprehension. In the first study, we compared this framework to an instructional framework emphasizing Strategy Instruction (SI), but not including motivation support. In the second study, we compared CORI to SI and to a traditional instruction group (TI), and used additional measures of major constructs. In both studies, class-level analyses showed that students in CORI classrooms were higher than SI and/or TI students on measures of reading comprehension, reading motivation, and reading strategies.

Research paper thumbnail of A review of reading motivation scales

Research paper thumbnail of How situational competence beliefs and task value relate to inference strategies and comprehension during reading

Learning and Individual Differences

Research paper thumbnail of Applying Evidence‐Centered Design in the Development of a Multidimensional Adaptive Reading Motivation Measure

Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice

Research paper thumbnail of Testing the inference mediation hypothesis in a post-secondary context

Contemporary Educational Psychology

Research paper thumbnail of The Development of Motivation for Reading and How It Is Influenced by CORI

ABSTRACT In this chapter the authors discuss the development of children's reading motiva... more ABSTRACT In this chapter the authors discuss the development of children's reading motivation and how motivation contributes to reading engagement. They consider aspects of motivation that may influence children's reading engagement. They review research on how these aspects of motivation develop during the elementary school years, and connect this research to their work on fostering reading engagement in Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI). They organize the chapter in four sections. First, they define aspects of reading motivation that others and they have assessed. Second, they discuss how motivation links to reading comprehension by influencing the amount of reading that children do. Third, they discuss how children's motivation changes over the school years, and some of the reasons for these changes, including how different kinds of instructional practices influence children's reading motivation. They also present some information in this section about how CORI influences children's reading motivation. Fourth, they discuss their idea that children's intrinsic motivation to read can be enhanced by first creating interest in a topic through hands-on science activities and then connecting this interest to reading. The authors call this the situational-to-general hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Research paper thumbnail of Adolescents' expectancies for success and achievement task values during the middle and high school years

Research paper thumbnail of Expectancy value theory in cross-cultural perspective

Big theories revisited, 2004

Research paper thumbnail of A Mixed-Methods Study of Perceived Academic Autonomy in Japanese Students and Its Relations to Their Motivation

Research paper thumbnail of Early-Career Psychologist Looks at International Collaborative Research

Research paper thumbnail of Early Academic Success in College: Examining the Contributions of Reading Literacy Skills, Metacognitive Reading Strategies, and Reading Motivation

Journal of College Reading and Learning

Research paper thumbnail of Confirmation of the Factor Structure of an Autonomous Reading Motivation Measure for Middle School Students

Proceedings of the 2019 AERA Annual Meeting

Research paper thumbnail of A computer adaptive measure of reading motivation

Journal of Research in Reading, 2020

Background: The importance of reading motivation has led to the development of a large number of ... more Background: The importance of reading motivation has led to the development of a large number of self-report reading motivation measures; however, there is still a need for a usable measure of adolescent reading motivation that captures a large number of theoretically and empirically distinct constructs. Methods: The current paper details the development and validation of a computer adapted measure of reading motivation, the Adaptive Reading Motivation Measure (ARMM), which assesses constructs of curiosity, involvement, interest, value, challenge, grades, recognition, competition, avoidance, self-efficacy, perceived difficulty, preference for autonomy, social motivation, prosocial goals and antisocial goals for reading. Results: Model fit indicated that hierarchical multidimensional models fit better than models without a hierarchical structure. The validation results indicate that females scored higher than men and younger students scored higher than older students on most ARMM scores when scores were derived using a higher order model. In addition, these scores correlated significantly to reading behaviour, engagement and achievement and indicated high reliability. Conclusions: The findings suggest that the ARMM would be a valid measure to assess a large number of reading motivation constructs in a short period of time within a classroom setting.

Research paper thumbnail of Developing Self-Regulated Readers through Instruction for Reading Engagement

Handbook of Self-Regulation of Learning and Performance, 2013

11 Developing Self-Regulated Readers through Instruction for Reading Engagement Stephen M. Tonks ... more 11 Developing Self-Regulated Readers through Instruction for Reading Engagement Stephen M. Tonks Northern Illinois University Ana Taboada George Mason University During this week Ms. Baker and her fourth grade students are focusing on the science concept of life ...

Research paper thumbnail of Expectancy-Value Theory

Research paper thumbnail of From Spark to Fire

The processes of change in children’s reading motivation have not been widely studied. We investi... more The processes of change in children’s reading motivation have not been widely studied. We investigated whether situated interest for a specific book may lead to longer-term intrinsic motivation for general reading. Two schools with 120 grade 3 students filled out reading logs identifying their reasons for reading their favorite books twice. In addition, students completed general motivation and comprehension measures as a pre-assessment and as a post-assessment. Students who increased in their level of situated interest in an information book over time increased in their general reading motivation from September to December. Also, students who decreased in their level of situated extrinsic motivation for reading a narrative book decreased in general extrinsic motivation. It appeared that children’s changes in situated motivation predicted their changes in general reading motivation, within an instructional context that supports engagement and motivation in reading.

Research paper thumbnail of youths' growing self-confidence and personal resourcefulness in acquiring the skills needed for adulthood. In his chapter, he discusses the attainment of self-regulation in terms of four levels of learning specific skills: observation, emulation, self-control, and self-regulation. According to this

Research paper thumbnail of Faculty Practices in Assigning and Evaluating Students Writing Assignments

Research paper thumbnail of Expectancy-Value Theory

Research paper thumbnail of Children's Motivation for Reading: Domain Specificity and Instructional Influences

The Journal of Educational Research, 2004

The authors discuss the nature and domain specificity of reading motivation and present initial r... more The authors discuss the nature and domain specificity of reading motivation and present initial results that examined how 2 reading instructional programs, Concept Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) and multiple Strategy Instruction (SI), influenced 3rd-grade children's intrinsic motivation to read and reading self-efficacy. Each reading program occurred during the fall of the school year and lasted 12 weeks. Approximately 150 3rd-grade children participated in CORI; 200 3rd-grade children participated in SI. Results of pre-and posttest analyses of children's responses to a reading motivation questionnaire showed that children's intrinsic motivation to read and reading self-efficacy increased only in the CORI group.

Research paper thumbnail of Increasing Reading Comprehension and Engagement Through Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction

Journal of Educational Psychology, 2004

Based on an engagement perspective of reading development, we investigated the extent to which an... more Based on an engagement perspective of reading development, we investigated the extent to which an instructional framework of combining motivation support and strategy instruction (Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction-CORI) influenced reading outcomes for third-grade children. In CORI, five motivational practices were integrated with six cognitive strategies for reading comprehension. In the first study, we compared this framework to an instructional framework emphasizing Strategy Instruction (SI), but not including motivation support. In the second study, we compared CORI to SI and to a traditional instruction group (TI), and used additional measures of major constructs. In both studies, class-level analyses showed that students in CORI classrooms were higher than SI and/or TI students on measures of reading comprehension, reading motivation, and reading strategies.

Research paper thumbnail of A review of reading motivation scales

Research paper thumbnail of How situational competence beliefs and task value relate to inference strategies and comprehension during reading

Learning and Individual Differences

Research paper thumbnail of Applying Evidence‐Centered Design in the Development of a Multidimensional Adaptive Reading Motivation Measure

Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice

Research paper thumbnail of Testing the inference mediation hypothesis in a post-secondary context

Contemporary Educational Psychology

Research paper thumbnail of The Development of Motivation for Reading and How It Is Influenced by CORI

ABSTRACT In this chapter the authors discuss the development of children's reading motiva... more ABSTRACT In this chapter the authors discuss the development of children's reading motivation and how motivation contributes to reading engagement. They consider aspects of motivation that may influence children's reading engagement. They review research on how these aspects of motivation develop during the elementary school years, and connect this research to their work on fostering reading engagement in Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI). They organize the chapter in four sections. First, they define aspects of reading motivation that others and they have assessed. Second, they discuss how motivation links to reading comprehension by influencing the amount of reading that children do. Third, they discuss how children's motivation changes over the school years, and some of the reasons for these changes, including how different kinds of instructional practices influence children's reading motivation. They also present some information in this section about how CORI influences children's reading motivation. Fourth, they discuss their idea that children's intrinsic motivation to read can be enhanced by first creating interest in a topic through hands-on science activities and then connecting this interest to reading. The authors call this the situational-to-general hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Research paper thumbnail of Adolescents' expectancies for success and achievement task values during the middle and high school years

Research paper thumbnail of Expectancy value theory in cross-cultural perspective

Big theories revisited, 2004

Research paper thumbnail of A Mixed-Methods Study of Perceived Academic Autonomy in Japanese Students and Its Relations to Their Motivation

Research paper thumbnail of Early-Career Psychologist Looks at International Collaborative Research