The Relationship between English Learning Motivations and Learning Anxiety of EFL Vocational School Students: The Case Study in Southern Taiwan

• Main Authors: Jia-yu Wu, 吳嘉瑜
• Other Authors: Tsu-Fu Wang
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2013
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/80285269932280363249

碩士 === 國立雲林科技大學 === 應用外語系碩士班 === 101 === The present study was aimed to investigate the relationship between learning motivation and learning anxiety of EFL vocational high students. The research questionnaire was conducted with a total of 262 EFL vocational high students participating in the study from the early October 2012. The questionnaires including background information, Language Learning Orientations Scale – Intrinsic Motivation, Extrinsic Motivation, Amotivation Subscales (LLOS - IEA) (from Noels, Pelletier, Cl&;eacute;ment &; Vallerand, 2000), and Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) (referred to Horwitz, Horwitz &; Cope, 1986), and open-ended questions were utilized to collect the data. The SPSS version 18.0 for Windows was administered to analyze the collected data. Descriptive statistics, Pearson product-moment correlation, one-way ANOVA, and the interpretations of open-ended questions were used to analyze the data. The major findings of the present study were illustrated. First, in terms of English learning motivation, the differences are significant in different levels of grades (F = 3.336, p< .05). Next, the differences in English learning anxiety were not significant in regard to different levels of grades. Then, the correlation between overall learning motivation and overall learning anxiety was significant (r = .123). Besides, the correlations between some subscales of learning motivation and learning anxiety were also significant. That is, the relationship of amotivation was significant with fear of negative evaluation (r = .159, p< .01). Besides, the relationship of external regulation was significant with fear of negative evaluation (r = .205, p< .01), communication apprehension (r = .198, p< .05), and the overall anxiety (r= .190, p< .01). In addition, the relationship of introjected regulation was significant with communication apprehension (r = .138, p< .05). Moreover, the relationship of identified regulation was significant with fear of negative evaluation (r = .151, p< .05), communication apprehension (r = .128, p< .05), and the overall anxiety (r= .156, p< .05). Finally, the relationship of intrinsic motivation—stimulation was significant with fear of negative evaluation (r = .202, p< .05). The results from the study suggested that EFL vocational high students should understand their types of learning motivation and know how to transform their learning anxiety into learning motivation by reducing learning anxiety, and suggested that English educators help EFL learners to elevate their learning motivation.