Compromiso con la lectura y aprendizaje de las ciencias naturales.

Based on emergent motivation theory (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, 1997, 2008; Shernoff, Csikszentmihalyi, Schneider & Shernoff, 2003; Shernoff & Schmidt, 2008), this study analyzes the relationships between high school students’ perceptions of their reading skills, task challenge, and personal control over assigned reading activities and their reading engagement (i.e., interest, enjoyment, and concentration), apathy, boredom and anxiety during science instruction. The study examines how these relationships varied between groups of science subject and by teacher support. The present study also examines teachers` perceptions about reading as activity for promoting science learning. Finally, the study examines the associations between reading engagement and science achievement. The Experience Sampling Method (ESM, Csikszentmihalyi & Larson, 1987) will be used on a sample of 210 high school students to measure their perceptions of challenge, skills, control, and reading engagement, apathy, boredom and anxiety during science instruction. Classroom observations, interviews and content analysis will be used to study teachers’ perceptions of reading in science. Hierarchical Lineal Modeling (HLM, Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002) will be conducted for the analysis of repeated measures of students’ momentary experiences of skill, challenge, control, engagement, apathy, anxiety and boredom during reading in science classrooms. Educational implications of the results will be presented.