Identifying themes of curiosity for reading materials in the Sri Lankan ESL university context

Inadequate English language proficiency of Sri Lankan undergraduates is a long-standing issue, largely ascribed to insufficient levels of intrinsic motivation to learn English. Curiosity—an intrinsic desire to know something—is proposed as an underutilized avenue, which if integrated into English language learning may enhance motivation and language learning success. However, language learning opportunities that are likely to inspire curiosity among Sri Lankan English language learners are not well-known. To fill this gap, Phase I of this mixed methods study involved administering an open-ended online questionnaire among 182 undergraduate English language learners to determine suitable themes associated with greatest levels of curiosity in reading. Data from Phase I was thematically analysed to procure six themes associated with highest levels of curiosity. Phase II entailed a sub-cohort of 103 students scoring a collection of 90 news articles, aligned with the six themes identified in Phase I, using a seven-option Likert scale. A non-validated curiosity instrument was used in this exploratory quantitative phase to gauge participants’ responses to selected reading texts, with findings interpreted in light of the study’s preliminary scope and methodological limitations. The data collected during Phase II was subject to a one-way repeated measures ANOVA and indicated that four themes had significantly higher mean curiosity scores than the other two themes. This study suggests a context-specific approach to identifying reading materials that may engage learner curiosity, particularly within the Sri Lankan university context.