Correlation between Motivational Orientations and Self-Control on Learners’ English Achievement

Abstract

The objectives of this study are to probe the correlation between motivational orientations and self-control on Learners’ English achievement as evidenced by the TOEFL score, and to investigate which of the two psychological aspects is more dominantly contributive in affecting the learners’ achievement. It employed mixed-method design which combined qualitative and quantitative methods to measure the data elicited from distributed questionnaires and interviews. The researcher purposely took English Department Students as the participants who had attended TOEFL Test. Questionnaires were distributed to measure their motivation and self-control in relation to their English learning. Besides, from the 32 participants who returned the questionnaire, there were only 10 of them chosen to become the representatives in the interview session. The finding showed the correlation between both motivational orientations exhibited a great difference. Integrative motivation has a positive correlation (r=0.371) with the TOEFL score although classified as moderate while the instrumental one is negatively correlated (r= -0.240). This means that integrative motivation is relatively more contributive to English achievement. The significant value of the integrative motivation was lower than the confidence level (0.05; Sig. INT =0.037), whereas the significant level of instrumental motivation showed higher than the confidence level (Sig, INS =0.186) indicating that instrumental motivation and the learners’ achievement in English were not significantly correlated. Meanwhile, self-control has a strong correlation to the TOEFL score (r=0.532) with confidence level higher than the significant value obtained (0.02).