Accelerated reader: Extrinsic or intrinsic reading for students?

The purpose of this study was to measure the effectiveness of the Accelerated Reader and whether it intrinsically or extrinsically motivated students to read in their English classes. The eight month study examined 150 students who attend a suburban middle school in a largely diverse Western metropolitan city. Student intrinsic and extrinsic reading motivation was assessed using the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (Ryan 1982; Ryan, Mims & Koestner, 1983; Plant & Ryan, 1985; Ryan Connell, & Plant, 1990; Ryan, Koestner, & Deci 1991; Deci, Eghrari, Patrick, & Leone, 1994), which was used to determine the control and research groups. Included in the sample were English Language Learners identified by the California English Language Development Test. Accelerated Reader accrued points was used in order to determine the students motivation after the 27-week reading benchmark. Results revealed sutdent Accelerated Reader accrued point totals after 27 weeks were not met by English proficient or English Language Leamer students who were intrinsically or extrinsically motivated. In addition, data did not show a significant increase in reading growth and achievement and do not support the idea that students who are intrinsically motivated to read would obtain higher Accelerated Reader point totals. These findings support the need to conduct fmther research due to the increase in student population whose primary language is other than English