Control and value appraisals and online multiple‐text comprehension in primary school: The mediating role of boredom and the moderating role of word‐reading fluency

Considering separately two settings (homework, test), we studied the mediation of boredom in the relation between control-value appraisals and online multiple-text comprehension in primary-school students, focusing on the moderating role of word-reading fluency. Participants were 334 fourth and fifth graders. Methods: We evaluated students’ reading-related self-efficacy and task-value, reading-related boredom for homework and tests, word-reading fluency, and online multiple-text comprehension. Path analyses revealed negative relations between control-value appraisals and boredom for homework and tests, and between boredom and online multiple-text comprehension for tests only. For the latter, word-reading fluency moderated the relation between appraisals, boredom, and comprehension: Boredom negatively related to comprehension only for students with high word-reading fluency. Conclusions: Findings are discussed focusing on antecedents of online multiple-text comprehension as a literacy skill critical in the 21st Century. We underlined their implications for learning in general and specifically for the current educational changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. © 2021 The Authors. British Journal of Educational Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Psychological Societ