Research on English Reading Motivation and Its Influencing Factors in Social Network Environment

Reading plays a pivotal role in English language acquisition, with the motivation for reading critically influencing both readers' attitudes and students' competencies. This study develops an English reading model predicated on a social network-enabled reading mechanism and investigates the impact of English reading motivation through the lens of social network embedding. The research focuses on English readers' reading motivation, employing five scales: structural embeddedness, relational embeddedness, reading goals, reading interest, and reading motivation. Data were analyzed using factor analysis and structural equation modeling to elucidate the influence mechanism of English reading motivation from the perspective of social network embeddedness. The results indicate that the path coefficients for the impact of structural and relational embedding within social networks on English reading goals are statistically significant at the 0.05 level, with values of 0.152 and 0.133, respectively. Furthermore, the path coefficient linking English reading goals to English reading interest is 0.335, and the coefficient from reading interest to reading motivation is 0.542, both of which are significant at the 0.001 level. The findings suggest that engaging in English reading activities through social networks can substantially boost readers' interest in reading, thereby facilitating the achievement of their reading goals. © 2024 Wanmei Liao, published by Sciendo.