Motivation and Achievement in English as a Foreign Language
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| Year of publication | 2021 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
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| Description | Motivation is a key factor connected with successful EFL learning and is a central focus of the current research. Motivation studies repeatedly show the connection ofmotivation to acquired EFL skills. They show that motivation differs based on gender, age, school type, and across countries. Our study analyses the level of students’ achievement motivation in EFL and its relationship to their grades and aspiration. The sample was constructed by using the probability sampling of lower secondary schools in the Czech region of South Moravia and consisted of 26 schools (i.e., 25 of 9th grade classes, 462 students). In this analysis, 324 students were included (172 female). The Achievement Motivation Questionnaire (Hrabal & Pavelková, 2010) was used, measuring the need for achievement (NfA, 7 items) and the need to avoid failure (NtAF, 7 items) on a 5-point response scale. The reported grade in English, receiving a final report card with honours, and aspiration to study at an upper secondary comprehensive school were measured by a questionnaire and analysed as dummy variables. Data analysis included logistic regression models computed in software R (glm function with probit specification). The need for achievement (NfA) in EFL was found to be a positive predictor and the need to avoid failure (NtAF) was found to be a negative predictor of student final grade in English, receiving a final reportcard with honours, and aspiration to study at an upper secondary comprehensive school. The effect of NfA on all three variables was, on average, lower for males than for females, and the effect of NtAF formales was, on average, higher. In accordance with previous studies, our findings confirm the relation between reported motivation in EFL and English achievement. Also, previous studies conclude that domain-specific instruments predict indicators of achievement in particular domains better than domain-general instruments (Michel et al., 2020). Our instrument measuring NfA and NtAF was successfully predicting not only English achievement, but also general learning achievement (i.e. receiving a final report card with honours) and aspiration to study at an elite upper secondary comprehensive school. Our further research will consider the scale usage differences among students by using the anchoring vignette method. |
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