The Role of Culture, Motivation and Interest on reading Comprehension among Iranian University Students

In the age of globalization, reading in second or foreign language settings continues to increase in importance. Many students of English as a Foreign Language rarely need to speak the language in their day-to-day lives but may need to read it in order to access a wealth of information. This study investigates to what extent culture, motivation, and interest can affect reading comprehension of Iranian English language university students. Based on 107completed questionnaires, the results show that interest has the most significant correlation with literal (word-based) reading comprehension. The results also indicate that there is a positivecorrelation between familiarity and reading comprehension. It is also proven that there is a negative relationship between extrinsic motivation and word-based reading comprehension. The relationship between intrinsic motivation and word-based readingcomprehension was not significant. The results of this study suggest that none of the independent variables have a significanteffect on content-based reading comprehension.