The Rise and Fall of Iranian Female Students’ Motivation at Different Levels of Language Proficiency from High School to University

Abstract

The present research is an attempt to find out the relationship between the rise and fall of Iranian female students’ motivation and their different levels of language proficiency from high school to university and to discover whether the motivation of Iranian female students at different proficiency levels change over an academic semester. Furthermore, the focus of the study is on the possible reasons behind the rise and fall of motivation for students at different proficiency levels .This study was conducted in Mazandaran, Iran. The participants were 80 Iranian female students from among high school students and university BA students. The data was gathered using a questionnaire and a semi-structured interview. To analyze the data, a one-way ANOVA, repeated measure ANOVA and Pearson Correlation were run. The results indicated that there is a statistically significant difference in the motivation level across different language proficiency groups over an academic semester. In addition, there is a significant positive relationship between the participants’ motivation scores and their language proficiency scores. It also revealed that there are five demotivating factors responsible for the rise and fall of motivation for students at different proficiency levels including learning contents, materials, and facilities; attitude towards English speaking community; the teacher; experience of failure, and attitude towards second language learning. Among these, learning contents, materials, and facilities are the most prominent demotives in L2 learning, and attitude towards second language learning is the least important source of demotivation.