Students of Different Subjects Have Different Levels of Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation to Learn English: Two Different Groups of EFL Students in Japan

Kieran Green,Junichi Fujita

doi:10.5539/elt.v9n9p156

Abstract

<p>Here is documented an investigation to assess the motivational drivers of a group of Japanese, first-year, dental-university students taking part in compulsory EFL classes and to compare those motivational drivers with an investigation into the motivational drivers of a group of Japanese IT students. There was a clear difference between extrinsic and intrinsic motivational drivers between the two groups. It was discovered that dental students valued English much less for work related reasons (intrinsic) and more for personal reasons (extrinsic), and that overall they had a more favourable attitude to their EFL studies. It was demonstrated that for this group of dental students the importance of English for dentists at work and in research needs to be emphasized in lessons and that students have a favourable attitude to using English and would be happy to have more communication-based exercises in class. This work is the first documented evidence of students of different subjects having different motivations. It is important to the wider teaching community as there are few comparisons of motivation in the literature, and the investigation presented here clearly demonstrates that what motivates one group of students does not necessarily motivate another group, and quite probably, the fingerprint of motivational drivers is quite different for students of different subjects.</p>

Highlights

Motivation is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as ‘a reason or reasons for acting or behaving in a particular way’, or ‘desire or willingness to do something; enthusiasm’, and its study in relation to learning foreign languages has a long history (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Dörnyei, 1998; Gardner, 1985)
Is documented an investigation to assess the motivational drivers of a group of Japanese, first-year, dental-university students taking part in compulsory EFL classes and to compare those motivational drivers with an investigation into the motivational drivers of a group of Japanese IT students
It is important to the wider teaching community as there are few comparisons of motivation in the literature, and the investigation presented here clearly demonstrates that what motivates one group of students does not necessarily motivate another group, and quite probably, the fingerprint of motivational drivers is quite different for students of different subjects

Summary

Introduction

Motivation is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as ‘a reason or reasons for acting or behaving in a particular way’, or ‘desire or willingness to do something; enthusiasm’, and its study in relation to learning foreign languages has a long history (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Dörnyei, 1998; Gardner, 1985). Gardner (1985) split motivational drivers into instrumental goals—the practical values of speaking the target language—from integrative goals—the desire to learn the language in order to become integrated into the target language culture In their Self-determination Theory, Deci and Ryan (1985) saw motivation in a dichotomous scheme, dividing motivational drivers into intrinsic type—doing something because it is interesting or enjoyable—and extrinsic type—doing something because it leads to a non-language outcome. One study found that Danish university students were much more motivated to learn English than were Japanese university students (Amburgey, 2015), the blame for this being laid on Japanese students’ school experiences Another comparison of motivations between different groups of language learners found that Canadian school children had more motivation to learn French than did their Scottish counterparts (Diffey et al, 2001). Examining the motivational drivers of a single group with similar expectations and norms elt.ccsenet.org

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