Innovation in Language Learning

Recently, considerable attention has been paid to learner motivation and academic self-efficacy. To increase the motivational aspects of learning, earlier research focused on learning material content. While online learning has been considered an important learning method, there is a lack of research on the topic. This study tests whether the relationship between learners’ majors and the content of learning materials influences their motivation and academic self-efficacy in blended foreign language learning settings in higher education. The current study used anonymized data of first-year students’ questionnaire results (N=314) at a Japanese university. They had various majors, including pharmacy, nursing, animal care, piloting, law, and political science. They took 15-week blended English learning classes, and answered a motivational questionnaire at two different times, before and after the classes. The motivational questionnaire was created based on Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MLSQ, Pintrich & de Groot 1990), which included intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and academic self-efficacy. Since the learning materials were based on a chemistry and biology textbook written in English, students’ interests in the materials varied across their majors. Furthermore, the materials were designed to enhance academic self-efficacy. To this end, while the English passages were difficult to understand with many technical terms, learning supports such as glossaries and explanations of how to understand the texts were included, to enhance student learning and self-efficacy. A mixed effect model was used to analyze the motivation and academic self-efficacy scores (two factors: students’ majors x timing). The results showed that in intrinsic and extrinsic motivations and academic self-efficacy, there was no difference in the main effect among students’ majors, and no interaction between students’ majors and timing. These results indicate that the relationship between students’ interests and the content of learning materials did not enhance intrinsic motivation and academic self-efficacy. On the other hand, after-class questionnaire scores of intrinsic motivation and academic self-efficacy were greater than the corresponding before-class scores. This confirms that learning materials used in the current study successfully enhanced learners’ intrinsic motivation and academic self-efficacy, regardless of their interests. Extrinsic motivation differed across students’ majors, and there was no difference in extrinsic motivation between before-class and after-class scores. These results suggest that extrinsic motivation differs due to the relationship between learners’ interests and the content of learning materials, but does not increase any motivational and self-efficacy scores by intervention.

Keywords: intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, academic self-efficacy, English as a foreign language (EFL), language learning.

References:

• Pintrich, P. R., & de Groot, E. V. (1990). Motivational and self-regulated learning components of classroom academic performance. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82(1), 33–40.