1ArRass College of Technology, ArRass, Saudi Arabia
American Journal of Educational Research.
2016,
Vol. 4 No. 16, 1131-1137
DOI: 10.12691/education-4-16-2
Copyright © 2016 Science and Education PublishingCite this paper: Ahmad Mousa B. Altasan. Motivational orientations and their effect on English Language Learning: A Study in EFL Saudi Context.
American Journal of Educational Research. 2016; 4(16):1131-1137. doi: 10.12691/education-4-16-2.
Correspondence to: Ahmad Mousa B. Altasan, ArRass College of Technology, ArRass, Saudi Arabia. Email:
thank2u@hotmail.comAbstract
The aim of the present study is to explore integrative and instrumental orientations and their influence on foreign/second language acquisition. Then, it investigates Saudi students' motivation to learn English and the correlations between their motivational outlooks and their English achievement scores. A modified 18-item survey, adopted and modified from the Attitude/Motivation Test Battery (AMTB) developed by R. C. Gardner (1985), was administered to two groups of non-English major EFL students at two technical colleges from two different cities, Dammam and ArRass, in Saudi Arabia. Data were collected simultaneously and were subjected to some basic statistical analyses, such as "mean" and "standard deviation". Overall, findings indicated that although Dammam group obtained higher English achievement scores, they were similar to ArRass group in respect of their motivational outlooks, which means that achievement scores were affected by other variables. In this study, the attitude toward English variable was examined and the results showed significant difference between the two groups.
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