In the era of digital intelligence, reading literacy has transcended mere textual comprehension to become a key indicator of college students' critical thinking and lifelong learning capabilities. Currently, Chinese university students face numerous c...
In the era of digital intelligence, reading literacy has transcended mere textual comprehension to become a key indicator of college students' critical thinking and lifelong learning capabilities. Currently, Chinese university students face numerous challenges in their reading practices, including information overload, superficial reading, and a lack of intrinsic motivation. Against this backdrop, exploring the underlying mechanisms for enhancing reading literacy is crucial. This study aims to construct a systematic theoretical model, focusing on how metacognitive strategies and information literacy influence Chinese university students' reading literacy through the mediating variable of reading motivation, and to validate the causal relationships within this model.
This study focused on full-time undergraduate students in China, collecting a total of 1,197 questionnaires and retaining 1,084 valid responses. Established measurement tools and scales were employed to analyze the data. The processing methods included descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equation modeling analysis. The Bootstrapping method was used to test the significance of the mediating effect.
The findings of this study are as follows: First, both metacognitive strategies and information literacy exert significant positive direct effects on reading literacy. Second, reading motivation played a significant partial mediating role in the relationship between metacognitive strategies, information literacy, and reading literacy. This indicates that high levels of metacognitive strategies and information literacy can effectively enhance students' intrinsic reading motivation, such as learning interest and value recognition, thereby indirectly improving their reading literacy. Third, analysis revealed that the higher a student's level of information literacy, the stronger the role of metacognitive strategies in stimulating and promoting reading motivation.
This study systematically elucidates the intrinsic mechanisms linking metacognitive strategies, information literacy, reading motivation, and reading literacy through empirical analysis, confirming the critical mediating role of reading motivation. Theoretically, this deepens our understanding of the interaction mechanisms between cognitive and non-cognitive factors, contributing to the advancement of reading education theory. At the practical level, the findings provide clear direction for higher education reform: universities should integrate metacognitive skill training, systematic information literacy education, and instructional design that fosters intrinsic motivation into their teaching. Through multidimensional, integrated training programs, they can effectively enhance the overall reading literacy of college students.