L2 motivation, anxiety and self-efficacy: The interrelationship of individual variables in the secondary school context

Katalin Piniel,Kata Csizér

doi:10.14746/ssllt.2013.3.4.5

Abstract

Our study describes the relationship of second language learning motivation, self-efficacy, and anxiety; that is, how motivation, cognition, and affect might interact during the process of second language learning. Questionnaire data were collected from 236 Hungarian students studying at various secondary schools. Structural equation modeling was used to investigate the proposed circular relationship of students’ motivated learning behavior, language learning experience, self-efficacy beliefs, and both debilitating and facilitating anxiety. Our results indicate that: (a) the process of motivation is complex and influenced by other individual difference (ID) variables, and (b) the investigation of ID variables in constellations rather than in isolation seems to be more fruitful in understanding language learner differences.

Highlights

The aim of the present study was to investigate the complex relationship among three of the abovementioned individual difference (ID) variables, namely, language learning motivation in terms of two dimensions, cognition in terms of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997), and affect in terms of the facilitating and debilitating effect (Eysenck, 1979; MacIntyre & Gardner, 1989) of foreign language classroom anxiety (Horwitz & Young, 1991), as constituents of the motivationcognition-affect framework proposed by Dörnyei (2009)
In terms of the assessment of data-model fit, we used the most often advised indices in the structural equation modeling (SEM) literature (Byrne, 2009), and along the chi-square statistics and the CMIN/df, we report additional indices: comparative fit index (CFI) (Fan, Thomson, & Wang, 1999; Hu & Bentler, 1999), the Bentler-Bonett normed fit index (NFI), the Tucker-Lewis coefficient (TLI), the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) (Browne & Cudeck, 1993; Fan et al, 1999; Hu & Bentler, 1999), and the parsimony-adjusted comparative fit index (PCFI)
With the help of structural equation modeling as a data analytical tool, we were able to demonstrate that Dörnyei’s (2009) tripartite model of motivationcognition-affect is a viable framework to use when investigating the relationship between language learning motivation, self-efficacy, and foreign language classroom anxiety

Summary

Introduction

MotivationSecond language motivation studies have been traditionally at the forefront of English applied linguistics research in the past decades, as motivation is considered to be one of the most important ID variables contributing to the success of second language learning. Gardner and his associates have been investigating the social-psychological aspect of L2 motivation in Canadian as well as several European contexts, in order to find out how positive attitudes towards the language and its speakers will affect students’ motivation. Their most important contribution to the field is the conceptualization of the notion of integrativeness, which describes to what extent students intend to integrate into, or more generally to identify with, the L2 community (Gardner, 2006, 2012; Masgoret & Gardner, 2003). An increasing number of longitudinal investigations have looked into how and why motivational changes happen (Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2011)

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Conclusion