THE REI-ATION$I-IIP BETWEEN MOTIVATIONAL VARIABLES AND PERFORMANCE IN ENGLISH

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THE REI-ATION$I-IIP BETWEEN MOTIVATIONAL VARIABLES AND PERFORMANCE IN ENGLISH

OT FILIPINO COLLEGE $TUDENTS

A"Ihesis Presented

to the

Faculty

of

the Cotlege of Graduate Studies Philippine Normal University

Taft

Avenrre, Manila

ln Fartial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the

Degree h/laster of

Arts in

Education

By

Marife B _!!e49ozi;

Marclf'2000

NAME:

TITLE OF I-HESIS

KEY CONCEPTS

SPECIALIZATION OBJECTIVES:

ABSTRAC]

MARI FE BILIWANG MENDOZA

TI.{E RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE MOTIVATIONAL VARIABLES AND THE PERFORMANCE IN ENGLISH AMONG

FILIPINO COLLEGE STUDENTS

motivatiorr, attitude, writing performance, speaking abi ^I ity, self-eff icacy( performance expectancy _), language ac.hievement, language attitudes, language anxiety, non-linguistic factors,

instrumental and integrative orientations, language dominance, goal setting, attribution, attention and persistence, valence.

English Language Teaclring

Generally, this study airns to provide new motivational measures which add to our

understanding of motivation in langurage learning.

Also, it probes into the role of motivation to the

witing

performance and speaking ability among selected college studerrts.

Specifically, ^it aims to answer the following questions.

1.

What

is the

language achievement

of

the students as to the following measures?

a.

^{grades in English}

- b.

^writing performance

a

speaking ability

2.

^{What is the level of} the students' motivational behavior in terms of each individual motivational measures?

3. What is the relationship

between rnotivational behavior

and

language achievement?

4. l-low does the students'

motivational behavior relate with otlrer antecedent variables?

METHODOLOGY:

The following procedure was undertaken for the completion of the study

Selected college students enrolled at Holy Angel University took part in

this study

lnitially,

the

researcher secured permission

for

conducting the study from

the

Dean

of

the College of Arts and

Sciences

The teacher educator instructirrg

the class granted the

researcher permission

to

administer instruments, and conduct the investigation.

Next, testing occurred. Test material was administered in the following

order.

First,

the

str-rdents

read a

^general instruction

form and

^personal information

sheet

Second, they answered the questionnaire that consists of the Attitude Motivation Test Elattery (AMTB)

scale.

Third, the essays were

witten

two weeks after the adminrstratron of the questionnaire Researchers in tl'ie field of composition believe that although a timed-in class writing sample is an imperfect reflection of vwiting ability, it may be the most reliable measure available (Foster,

1983;

Pajares

&

.Johnson,

1994).

Students then were asked

to

write

a

30-minr-rte

essay. The

topic was

the

same

as

used by Gardner andl-remblay,

"My

greatest fear". These essays were scored by English teachers who were unaware of student

identities

Both teacher-raters have spent a sizeable portion of their professional lives as teachers of English composition They used a holistic scoring method.

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The Test

of

Spoken English was also administered during this ^week.

Students were escorted

by the

researcher and

the

teacher adviser

to

the university language

laboratory

The students' video tapes were played for a panel

of

four judges

ln addition to this, a review of records was also employed in the study in

order to gather data for variables namely Grades in English.

ANALYSIS:

The obtained data from the AMTB questionnaire, the one-page essay, and the oral interview were treated with the use of frequency

distribution and percentage to describe the level of the rnotivation based from the individual components, and the performance itr English.

The researcher used correlation analysis in computing for the

a

relationship among tlre variables. A significance level of .05'ras used in

testing the hypotheses.

lf a

relationship

is

found between two variables,

it

should be

ascertained wtrether such relationship

is

real.

A

method

of

examining the relationship is to introduce a third variable called a " test factor" (mediator,or

intervening) into the analysis for the ^purpose of increasing

^one's understanding

of

the relationship. This method is termed as the process of elaboration.

SUMMARY,AND CONCLUSIONS:

The model proposed

in this

study suggests that

a

number of

variables rnediate the relationship between Language Attitudes

and

Motivational Behavior. Three such mediators are Goal Salience, Valence, an$

Self- Efficacy. The results suggest that specific goals and frequent reference to these goals lead to inci'eased levels of motivational behavior These findings

are

consistent

with Lee et, al.'s

(1989) proposition

that goals

influence performance by increasing intensity, persistence, and attention.

' A second mediator of the

attitude/motivational behavior relationship is valence. Language Attitudes are shovrnr to influence valence. lt means

that

higher levels

of

Motivational Behavior result wtren learning is valued.

A third is mediator of the attitude/motivational relationship is Self- efficacy.

ln the

present model, Self-efficacy

is

shown

to be

influenced by Language Attitudes and, inturn, to influence Motivational Behavior. The nature of this relationship is similar to that found by Clement (1980) and replicates findings

in

research concerned with his Social Context Model. Clement and Kruidenier

(1985)

indicate

that in

multicultural

settings'it is this

self- confidence which is the most important determinant of rnotivation to learn and use the second language" Furthermore, the literature on expectancy theory

supporls this relationship by suggestrng that high self- efficacy will lead to high motivational levels ( Bandura. 1991: Kirsch, 1986; Weiner, 1986).

The

model

also

speofres

that

Language Attitudes

is

directly influenced by Language Dominance which suggests that the more dominant use of English, the nrore positive is the attitude.

This model

Tremblay.

Motivational achievement.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

coincides with the previous findings of Gardner and

Behavior is still a

significant determinant of

1. First, it is the case that a model can never truly be contirmeO.

All that can be said is that the model fits or does not fit the data. The model suggests that goal setiing, valence, and self-efficacy have an influence on the level of motivatiorral behavior Thus, when a teacher observes that a student

I

displays high levels of motivational belravior, he or she may hypothesize that this conduci is influenced by the fact tl-mt the student sets goals for himself for herself. values tlre language course, ar:d has a high level of self-efficacy.

2. A second concern is th : size of the sample. Clearly, the larger

the

sample,

the

more stable

the

results would

be

across similar samples.

Small samples sometimes are unable to produce

a

solution

(

referred to as non-convergence),

and this is

most likely

to

occur when

the

relationship among the variables are not very strong. Although the analysis was performed

on a

sample

of

thirty subjects

(

minimum size reconrmended

by

Gay) _,the

xvl

researcher

did not

en@unter convergence problems. Moreover, there are many

parts of the

model

that have been

investigated

in other

studies ⁽ Gardner, 1985; Kraemer, 1991), and these aspects replicate here. ^Therefore, the basic relationships reported here are relatively ^stable.

3. To what

extent

can one alter

goal-setting, valence, self- efficacy, causal attributions, language attitudes, and motivational behavior?

Future language studies should ^address these ^questions

by

investigating characteristics

of the

environment

that

lead

to

changes

in

either

of

these

attributes. For ^example, one could test the validity of ^goal

^setting

manipulations

in the

classroom. Students could

be

asked

to

write'essays outlining their ^{goals in} the course and the value of these goals. Throughout the course, students could

be given

Some feedback

and could be

asked to evaluate

their

progress relative

to

their goals. Given

our

present model, ^it would be meaningful to determine whether this manipulation actually ^improves mctivational behavior.

Self-efficacy in this study includes an anxiety component, ^such

that high

anxiety levels

are

associated

with low

performance expectancy evaluations. The English Use Anxiety and English Class Anxiety measures are conceived

of

as relatively stable characteristics

of

individuals. This is not to say

that

intervention

to

reduce anxiety levels

in the

language class

is

not possible.

ln fact,

Horwitz

and

Young (1991) present many ways

in

which anxiety can be reduced in the language learning environment-

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4.

Although

the

attitudinal

and

motivational measures

in

this study

are

also conceptualized

as

relatively stable measures, they

too

are subject

to

modification

as

suggested

by the

Socio- Educational Model ⁽ Gardner,1985). Characteristics

of

the classroom that are under

a

teacher's control, for example, can interact with an individual's motivational dispositions to produce motivational behavior that is manifested in terms of effort, attention, and persistence Future studies could investigate this hypothesis.

5.

Future research

on the

relationships between motivational dispositions, motivational aspects of the classroom, motivational changes, and teacher's motivation

would not only

extend

our

theoretical knowledg.e of language learning

in

motivation

but

would

also

suggest ways

to

improve motivation.

6. A ^path analysis or multiple regression should be done in order to test the simultaneous relationships among the variables.

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