AN INVESTIGATION INTO CTU NON MAJORED ENGLISH STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION AND METACOGNITIVE STRATEGY USE b a thesis field of study english language learning

This descriptive study was done to find out 1 motivation, 2 the use of metacognitive strategies and 3 the relationship between motivation and the use of metacognitive strategies by 110 n

CAN THO UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF EDUCATION ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

AN INVESTIGATION INTO CTU NON-MAJORED

ENGLISH STUDENTS’

MOTIVATION AND METACOGNITIVE

STRATEGY USE B.A Thesis

Field of study: English Language Learning

Class: English Education-2-C33

Cần Thơ, April 2011

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I must begin my thanking to the English Department who has given me opportunities to do this research and guidance

For specific contribution to my paper, I would like to show my deep gratitude

to my supervisor, Ms Nguyễn Thị Văn Sử, who has spent much time giving me valuable instructions and corrections on my thesis It is not my success without her amicable encouragement

I am also grateful to my friends for helping and giving much encouragement to finish this thesis

In addition, my deep appreciation goes to all the students who provided me valuable information Without their cooperation, my thesis would never have been completed

Finally, I extremely would like to express my special thanks to my parents and

my boyfriend who were always by my side and gave me spiritual advice during the time of work

Lê Thị Bích Thùy

ABSTRACT

Motivation and metacognitive strategies are considered as two key factors in learning English (Oxford, 1989; Biggs, 1995) This descriptive study was done to find out (1) motivation, (2) the use of metacognitive strategies and (3) the relationship between motivation and the use of metacognitive strategies by 110 non- majoreded English students at Can Tho University The instrument used in the study was a 4- Likert scale questionnaire on motivation and metacognitive strategies, which were adapted from those by Vallerand et al (1992), and Schraw, G & Dennison, R.S., (1994) The results of this study revealed that students are highly motivated to learn English They are more extrinsically motivated (M= 2.96) than intrinsically motivated (M= 2.70) In addition, it was found that metacognitive strategies are highly used Among the three metacognitive strategies, monitoring strategies was used the most frequently (M= 2.96) Besides that, a relatively significant correlation between extrinsic motivation and metacognitive strategies was found (r= 0.47, r= 0.32, r= 0.30 Based on the results, discussions and implications for teaching English at CTU are suggested

TÓM TẮT

Động lực học và chiến thuật siêu nhận thức được xem như là hai nhân tố chủ chốt trong việc học tiếng Anh (Oxford, 1989; Biggs, 1995) Nghiên cứu mô tả này được thực hiện nhằm tìm ra (1) động lực học, (2) chiến thuật siêu nhận thức và (3) mối quan hệ giữa động lực học và việc sử dụng chiến thuật siêu nhận thức của 110 sinh viên không chuyên Anh văn tại Đại học Cần Thơ Công cụ được sử dụng trong nghiên cứu này là bảng khảo sát 4- Likert Scale về động lực học và chiến thuật siêu nhận thức dựa trên bảng khảo sát của Vallerand (1992) và Schraw, G & Dennison, R.S (1994) Kết quả nghiên cứu cho thấy sinh viên có động lực học tiếng Anh cao Những sinh viên này có động lực học “thực dụng” hơn là học vì “sở thích” Bên cạnh

đó, chiến thuật siêu nhận thức cũng được sử dụng trong khi học Trong ba chiến thuật siêu nhận thức, chiến thuật “điều chỉnh” việc học được sử dụng thường xuyên nhất Ngoài ra, nghiên cứu cũng cho thấy động lực học “thực dụng” và chiến thuật siêu nhận thức có mối quan hệ tương đối chặt chẽ Dựa trên kết quả tìm được, nghiên cứu này đưa ra một số thảo luận và ứng dụng cho việc dạy tiếng Anh ở Đại học Cần Thơ

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements Page i

Abstract ii

Tóm tắt iii

Contents iv

List of table and figures vi

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Research aims and questions 2

1.3 Definition of terms 3

1.4 Significance of the research 3

1.5 Research organization 3

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Motivation in second language acquisition 5

2.1.1 Definition of motivation 5

2.1.2 Self Determination Theory 6

2.2 Metacognitive strategies in English learning 7

2.2.1 Definition of metacognition 7

2.2.2 Categorization of metacognition 8

2.2.3 The role of metacognition in learning process 9

2.3 The relationship between motivation and metacognitive strategies 10

2.3.1 The role of motivation and metacognition in learning achievement10 2.3.2 Some studies related to the relationship between motivation and learning strategies 11

2.4 Justifications of the present study 12

Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY 13

3.1 Design 13

3.2 Participants and setting 13

3.3 Instrument 13

3.4 Procedures 15

3.4.1 Piloting the study 15

3.4.2 The official study 15

3.5 Data analysis 16

Chapter 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 17

4.1 Normal distribution of data 17

4.2 Descriptive statistic of students’ motivation 18

4.3 Descriptive statistics of students’ metacognitive strategies use 20

4.4 The correlation between students’ motivation and metacognitive strategies use……….22

4.4.1 The correlation between extrinsic motivation and metacognition strategies……… 23

4.4.2 The correlation between intrinsic motivation and metacognition strategies……… 23

Chapter 5: CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS, LIMITATIONS, AND FURTHER RESEARCH DIRECTIONS 25

5.1 Conclusions 25

5.2 Implications 26

5.3 Limitations and Future research directions 26

5.3.1 Limitations 26

5.3.2 Future research directions 27

REFERENCES viii

APPENDICES xi

Appendix 1 xi

Appendix 2 xviii

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 3.1: Taxonomy of the questionnaire items

Table 4.1: Descriptive statistics of students’ motivation and metacognitive strategies Table 4.2: Descriptive statistics of students’ motivation

Table 4.3: Descriptive statistics of students’ metacognitive strategies use

Figure 2.1: Metacognitive strategies in learning process

Figure 4.1: Statistics of students’ motivation

Figure 4.2: Statistics of students’ metacognitive strategies use

Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION

Motivation has been widely accepted by both teachers and researchers as one of the key factors that influences the success of foreign language learning According to Oxford (1989), effective learning strategies also affect learning outcome Among learning strategies, Kuhn (2000) said that metacognitive strategies play important role in enhancing learning performance Studies have been conducted on majored English students’ motivation and the use of metacognition in some specific skills How are non-majored English students who are believed to have low proficiency in English and low motivation as well? Whether do they know how to use metacognitive strategies when studying English? This question will be addressed in this research In the first chapter- Introduction, an over view of the research will

be presented This chapter will address (1) the rationale of this research, (2) the research aims and questions, (3) definition of terms, (4) significance of the study and (5) the research organization

1.1 Rationale

With the development of research on psycholinguistics and foreign language teaching, more attention has been paid to the learners’ characteristics The reason is because language learners differ in many ways and they can be affected by many social and psychological factors Researchers have identified many individual learning variables influencing learning outcome Among the individual learning variables,

language learning motivation and language learning strategies are considered two

key factors that affect the study of second language learning (Oxford, 1989) Motivation encourages students to make efforts to learn a language well in order to succedd or reach the goals they propose in their learning (Keller, 1983) Among different learning strategies, metacognitive strategies was regarded one of the most important language learning strategies by several researchers (O’Malley, Chamot, Stewner-Manzares, Kupper & Russo, 1985; Oxford, 1990; Skehan, 1989) Vermunt (1987) confirmed that metacognition was also said to be related to learning outcomes

According to Biggs (1995), motivation and metacognitive strategies are related

to academic achievement Most of the studies were conducted to examine motivation and metacognitive strategies among majored English students in some specific skills

in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) environment Researchers investigated the

relationship between motivation, metacognitive strategies and listening, writing or reading performance It was found that there was a significant relationship between metacognitive strategy use and learning performance, as well as metacognitive strategy use and intrinsic, extrinsic motivation (Corno, et al., 1982; Harrison, 1991;

Kurtz & Borkowski, 1984; Pintrich, 1990) Nevertheless, there were few studies

conducted for non-majored English students who just learn English integrated skills and do not have high English proficiency Thus, motivation and metacognitive strategies use can be different As a result, motivation and metacognitve strategies as well as their relationship of non-majored English students need to be researched

In Can Tho University (CTU) context, the number of non-majored English students is more than the number of majored English students They also learn English

as a foreign language They have to take an English placement test, after that they are placed to attend General English courses In these courses, they study English skills intergratively Whether non-majored English students in CTU are motivated and use metacognitive strategies like students in other EFL contexts? In addition, to what extent is motivation and metacognitive strategies in learning English of non-majored English students? To find out the answer for these questions, a research on motivation and metacognitive strategies was conducted at CTU

1.2 Research aims and questions

The aims of this study are:

(1) to examine non-majored English students’ motivation in learning English at Can Tho University (according to Self- Determination Theory discussed in chapter 2)

(2) to find out the extend to which students use metacognitive strategies in learning English at CTU

(3) to investigate the relationship between types of motivation and the use of metacognitive strategies in language learning process

The study addresses the three following research questions:

1 Are non-majored English students intrinsically or extrinsically motivated?

2 To what extent do non-majored English students use metacognitive strategies in their English classrooms?

3 To what extent is non-majored English students’ motivation related to metacognitive strategies?

1.3 Definition of terms

This part will give the definition of some terms closely related to the study

“Motivation” is considered as the choices people make to what experiences or goals

they will approach or avoid, and the degree of effort they will exert in that respect (Keller, 1983)

“Extrinsic motivation” is the motivational tendency that drives people to pursue an

activity because of some instrumental ends that are external to the activity (Deci and Ryan, 1985)

“Intrinsic motivation” motivates people to engage in activities because of the

inherent pleasure and satisfaction when people do these activities (Deci and Ryan, 1985)

“Metacognition” is “cognition about cognition” or “thinking about thinking”

(Anderson, 2002a)

These terms will be presented clearly in chapter 2- Literature review

1.4 Significance of the study

The findings of this study may be useful for the teachers at CTU in developing English textbooks or teaching materials that sustain students’ motivation English teachers can know their students’ motivation, metacognitive strategies, and the relationship between students’ motivation and their learning strategies metacognitve strategies in order to play an active role to enhance students’ performances In addition, students will be offered practical opportunities to be taught how to learn more effectively by using learning strategies Thus, it is hoped that this study may help teachers become more aware of their learners’ motivation for language learning and teach their students some strategies they can employ to improve their learning

1.5 Research organization

This thesis is divided into five chapters

Chapter 1- Introduction serves the introduction to the backgrounds such as the rationale, three primary objectives of the study with three research questions, definition of terms, significance of the research and the research organization

Chapter 2- Literature Review outlines some definitions of motivation and metacognition It summarizes some previous studies, which examined the relationship between motivation and learning strategies

Chapter 3- Methodology describes the research design, participants and setting, instrument, procedure, and the data analysis

Chapter 4- Results and Discussions presents the results of the study and discusses the research findings

Finally, chapter 5- Conclusion, Implications, Limitations, and Recommendations concludes the study with the limitation of the study, the conclusion, and topics for further research

Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

The importance of motivation and metacognition in learning English were mentioned

in past studies (Garner & Lambert, 1972; Oxford & Ehrman, 1995; Biggs, 1995) This chapter provides a review of the literature that includes (1) a brief overview of the definition and types of motivation, (2) the definition, and categorization of metacognition and (3) the correlation between s tudents’ motivation and their metacognitive strategies in some past studies

2.1 Motivation in second language acquisition

2.1.1 Definition of motivation:

Motivation is a significant role influencing the extent of people’s desire to do

an activity Two well- known educational psychologists initiated the notion of motivation: Robert Gardner and Wallace Lambert in 1950s According to Garner (2006), motivation is a very complex concept with many aspects Thus, it is impossible to give a specific definition Motivation can be viewed in many different ways of thought Brown (1994) stated that motivation was examined as a factor of different clusters of attitudes

Similarly, Ellis (1997) believed that motivation involves the attitudes and affective elements that influence the degree of the effort that learners make to reach the goal in learning second language In other word, motivation plays a key role to the degree of success in language learning

Furthermore, Keller (1983) mentioned not only degree of effort but also choices in considering motivation He said, “Motivation refers to the choices people make as to what experiences or goals they will approach or avoid, and the degree of effort they will exert in this respect.” Therefore, Keller pointed out learners decide not only the goal they reach but also those they avoid and the degree of the effort to do as well

In “Attitudes and Motivation in second language learning”, Gardner and Lambert believed the learner’s attitudes and readiness determined his motivation for language study Besides that, the learner’s orientation to the whole process of learning

a foreign language also indicated motivation to exert the effort for reaching learning goal (Garner and Lambert, 1972) In their findings, they also distinguished between integrative motivation and instrumental motivation This model has been widely accepted in social contexts and language learning area, but Gardner focused so much

on the integrative motivation Thus, this model has currently being broadened, incorporating new concepts from psychology, and learning theory (Crookes & Schmidt, 1991; Dorney, 2001)

Dorney (2005) referred motivation as an abstract, hypothetical concept, which people use to explain why they think and behave when they do an activity He outlined the distinction between integrative and instrumental motivation as proposed

by Gardner He also expanded the model of motivation by putting more concentrations on instrumental motivation

Oxford & Shearin (1996) asserted that motivation directly influences how often learners use second language learning strategies, how much learners communicate with other speakers, how much they acquire the target language, how well they do on curriculum-related achievement tests, how high their general proficiency levels are and how long they remember and maintain L2 skills after language study is over

2.1.2 Self- Determination Theory

Self Determination Theory (SDT) researchers have proposed one alternative construct of motivation that has useful implications to educational contexts: Deci and Ryan (1985) In this theory, researchers focused on not only the investigation of human beings’ inherent tendencies but also the psychological needs that were considered as the basic factors self-motivation and integration in personality (Ryan & Deci, 2000) They have proposed a motivational categorization based on the extent of

self-determination According to SDT, motivation is subdivided into intrinsic versus

extrinsic motivation depending on the degree to which an individual’s behavior is

self-motivated and self-determined (Deci & Ryan, 2002) They also suggested that this distinction is particularly useful for understanding individual differences in educational performances in language learning Particularly, they said that the two subtypes of motivation are not opposite; however, they are a continuum Extrinsic motivation can be defined as the goal of the activity providing satisfaction It means that a person is motivated to do something for fun, challenge or his interest While,

intrinsic motivation relates to the satisfaction within the activity itself An activity can

be done to lead to a separable outcome

Despite of different look at motivation and its construct, it was considered that motivation is a kind consisting of the individual’s attitudes and his desire to make effort for reaching the goal in language learning Although there are many ways to categorize it, the categorization of motivation in SDT framework have applied in many domains such as education, organization, psychotherapy, etc By focusing on the fundamental psychological tendencies toward intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, SDT occupies a unique position in psychology, as it addresses not only the central questions about the learners’ motives and goal in learning, but also the costs and benefits of various ways of socially regulating or promoting behavior

2.2 Metacognitive strategies in English learning

2.2.1 Definition of metacognition

Metacognitive strategies are considered the most essential ones among language learning strategies in improving learners’ skill (Anderson, 1991) First, it is important to explain and categorize language-learning strategies first Oxford (1990) stated that learning strategies are specific actions, which the learner uses to make learning process easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective, and more transferable to new learning situations Moreover, they can be categorized under three main groups: (1) cognitive strategies, (2) metacognitive strategies, (3) socio- affective strategies (O'Malley et al., 1985)

Metacognition was considered as cognition about cognition; which refers to

second order cognitions: thoughts about thoughts or reflections about actions Gradually, the concept of metacognition has been broadened and included not only thoughts about thoughts and cognitive states, but also psychological factors: affective states, motives, intentions and the ability to consciously monitor and regulate one’s knowledge (Livingston, J A., 1996)

J H Flavell (1976) indicated that metacognition involves the active monitoring and consequent regulation and orchestration of these processes to achieve the goal Metacognition reveals the active control over the process of thinking in learning

situations In the link with this definition, when learners repeat use of metacognition,

it might become automatized process

Glenberg (2005) also agreed that metacognition or metacognitive knowledge is related to the knowledge of the mental processes that influence the choices of different kinds of learning Metacognition has two fundamental aspects: knowledge about cognition and self-directed thinking Self-directed thinking consists of three strategies: evaluation, planning, and regulation activities

2.2.2 Categorization of metacognition

Anderson (2002a) simply defined metacognitive strategies as the processes of

“thinking about thinking” or “knowing about knowing” In his model, metacognitive strategies consist five main elements that are: (1) preparing and planning, (2) selecting and using particular strategies, (3) monitoring strategy use, (4) learning how to orchestrate various strategies, and (5) evaluating strategy use In the preparing and planning, students start thinking about what their goals are and how they will go about accomplishing them In the process of selecting when to use particular strategies,

learners think and make conscious decisions about the learning process and choose the best and most appropriate strategy in a given situation In the monitoring strategy use, through examining and monitoring the use of learning strategies, students have to ask themselves periodically whether they are still using those strategies as intended While learning how to orchestrate various strategies, students combine and make associations among the various strategies available In the last component, evaluating effectiveness strategy use, students try to evaluate whether what they are doing is effective by self-questioning, debriefing discussions after strategies practice and checklists of strategies used This help students reflect through the whole cycle of

learning At this stage of metacognition, all the previous stages are evaluated

However, according to Vandergrift (1997), there are four elements that make

up metacognitive strategies: (1) planning, (2) monitoring, (3) evaluation, and (4) problem identification In his model, the problem identification category was emphasized the importance of explicitly identifying the aspects of the task that lead to the good completion of the task Besides, he also introduced some simple and helpful teaching techniques to improve students’ metacognitive strategy use by illustrating some learning activities

According to O’Malley and Chamot (1990), metacognitive strategies are presented by three following metacognitive strategies: a) planning, b) monitoring and c) evaluating strategies This model is the most influential and is widely used in the research of metacognition (O’Malley and Chamot, 1990; Pintrich et al.’s, 1991)

Figure 2.1: Metacognitive strategies in learning process

Learning process

According to figure 2.1, there are three components of learning processes in metacognitive strategies such as planning, monitoring, and evaluation in Learning English as second language Based on these elements, learners may approach learning

in a systematic and efficient way Therefore, metacognitive strategies involve for example, planning for learning on reading and writing, monitoring of own progress in reading and writing task or self-evaluating performances of learning after the language task

2.2.3 The role of metacognition in learning process

Students use metacognitive strategies in learning, which allows them to plan, control, and evaluate their learning Thus, metacognition can play the most central role in improvement of learning process (Graham, 1997) It means that the use of appropriate learning strategies in general and metacognitive ones in specific is related

to academic achievement and learning performances’ development (Jacobs & Paris, 1987; Vermunt, 1987; Wittrock, 1983) Anderson asserted that without metacognitive approaches, language learners have no right direction or ability to monitor their progress, achievements, and future learning plans On the other hand, the more

Metacognitive strategies

Planning of own

learning

Monitoring of own learning

Evaluating of own learning

learners are aware of their thinking processes when learning, the more autonomous they are to master their accomplishments Similarly, it was emphasized that

"Enhancing metacognitive awareness of what one believes and how one knows and metastrategic control in application of the strategies that process new information "(Kuhn, 2000) It can be concluded that learners’ metacognitive awareness is related to effective learning in all learning contexts Therefore, it is very necessary for teachers to help learners use this awareness to enhance better learning outcomes

2.3 The relationship between motivation and metacognitive strategies

2.3.1 The role of motivation and metacognition in learning achievement

Many factors including cognitive and affective ones influence the use of language learning strategies Oxford (1989) pointed out that motivation is an affective variable, which affects the use of language learning strategies This was supportive of Gardner’s (1985) finding that the effort of learners to make on language learning is determined by their attitudes and motivation Motivation (Deci & Ryan, 1985) and metacognition (Vermunt, 1987) are both said to be related to academic achievement, little is known about how much of the relationship between metacognition is attributable to motivation

Researchers have done some studies on the relationship between language learning motivation and language learning strategy use (Maclntyre and Noels, 1996; Schmidt, Boraie, and Kassabgy, 1996; Schmidt and Watanabe, 2001) The results pointed out that motivation is significantly correlated with learning strategies In other word, learners’ choices of learning strategies may be reflected by their motivation Learning strategies, especially metacognitive strategies requiring great effort are proved to have more relationship with learners’ development of self-autonomy

A view of the above literature may conclude that it is necessary for teachers to understand learners’ motivation and their learning strategies in general, their metacognitive strategies in specific in learning process, since motivation is an affective factor of learners’ psychology and learning strategies are essential parts of successful learning Based on knowing the relationship between language learning motivation and the use of language learning strategies, teachers can provide materials,

strategies or teaching methods that are suitable for language learners Consequently, they can help their learners to reach the goal

2.3.2 Some research related to the relationship between motivation and learning strategies

Motivation and metacognition are regarded as two important factors influencing learners’ performance Research have shown a great interest in motivation and metacogniton and determined their correlation

In EFL context, Samsiah Bidin et al (2009) and Hsin-Hui Chang (2005) conducted the studies for non-majored English students to investigate students’ motivation toward learning English They found that the respondents were more extrinsically motivated than intrinsically motivated in learning English It means that most students learned English for external reasons instead of internal reasons It could

be inferred that these students just studied English required by the university or they want to get English certificates for getting job

Mohd Sahandri Gani Hamzah and Saifuddin Kumar Abdullah (2009) conducted

a study about metacognitve strategies use in East Coast region of Peninsular Malaysia

in Malaysia It is said that English learners utilized more of the metacognitive strategies

in learning Furthermore, Sasan Baleghizadeh and Amir Hossein Rahimi (2011) investigated the relationship between motivation, metacognitive strategies, and listening performance in Iran A statistically significant correlation was found between metacognitive strategy use and listening performance, listening performance and intrinsic motivation, as well as metacognitive strategy use and intrinsic, extrinsic motivation

In English as a Second Language (ESL) context, some studies on the relationship between motivation and metacognitive strategies were done Oxford and Ehrman (1995) investigated the relationship between language learning strategies and factors such as motivation, self-efficacy, tolerance of ambiguity, and anxiety They found a significant correlation between learning strategies and motivation It was also recognized that the use of metacognitive strategies was positively correlated with intrinsic motivation Therefore, it was said that teachers should pay more attention to

the motivation that could promote and intensify language learning according to students' concrete situation

Biggs (1995) proved that intrinsic motivation was an important element of the relationship between metacognitive approaches to learning and academic

achievement Other researchers (Corno, et al., 1982; Harrison, 1991; Kurtz &

Borkowski, 1984; Pintrich, 1990) confirmed that locus of control and self-efficacy account for some of the relationship between metacognition and academic achievement The positive relationship between metacognition and academic success, then, may be partially attributable to motivation, locus of control, and self-efficacy

2.4 Justifications of the present study

Researchers in the past did studies on metacognition, they mainly focused on the use of metacognition on specific English skills such as: listening, reading or writing of majored English students (Oxford and Ehrman, 1995; Biggs, 1995) However, non-majored English students study General English courses, which do not consist of specific skills I only found a few of research for majored English students, not for non-majored English students

In addition, Flavell (1979) considered metacognition as knowledge that regulates any part of cognitive activity Motivation is an affective factor that is directly related to self- regulation of learners in learning process Thus, I wonder that there is any relationship between motivation and the extent of using metacognition of non-majored English students

Therefore, I conduct this study to find out the correlation between learning motivation including extrinsic versus intrinsic motivation and three categories of metacognitive strategies: planning, monitoring, and evaluating in second language learning among non-majored English students at CTU As a result, language teaching methods and materials for English learning will be suitably designed for learners’ learning purposes to make good results in language learning

Chapter 3 METHODOLOGY

The previous chapter has reviewed the literature related to motivation and metacognitive strategies and the studies on their relationship In this chapter, the methodology of the research that includes (1) the research design, (2) the participants and setting, (3) the research instrument, (4) the procedure of the research, and (5) the data analysis will be described

3.1 Design

This descriptive study is conducted to find out students’ motivation and their metacognnitive strategies use and investigate how students’ motivation is related to metacognitive strategies According to Herbert and Elana (1989), descriptive research

is used to establish the existence of phenomena by explicitly describing them To achieve this objective, a questionnaire was delivered to non-majored English students

at CTU In this type of research, using multiple-choice questionnaire would help “give

a fuller picture and address many different aspects of phenomena” (Silverman, 2000, p.50)

3.2 Participants and setting

The participants of this study are non-majored English students at CTU The total number of students is 110 consisting of 40 males and 70 females ranging in age from 19 to 22 years The students’ majors include finance, engineering, biology education, physics education, construction engineering, geography education, mechanics, accounting, and economics

Most of non-majored English students have studied English in their high schools for seven years and some for three years At CTU, they are first and second year students who have been studying General English courses They have been learned integratively English skills in their General English courses Therefore, they are not believed to have good English proficiency

3.3 Instrument

Motivation and metacognitive strategies are unobservable; the only way to assess students’ motivation and their learning strategies is based on means of self-

report To get the data, a questionnaire was used as the instrument of this study The questionnaire items were developed based on Academic Motivation Scale (Vallerand

et al., 1992) and Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (Schraw, G & Dennison, R.S., 1994) Questionnaire items were written in English language and translated into Vietnamese by the researcher Then the Vietnamese version was checked by two English teachers to ensure the Vietnamese version that is easy for General English students to understand

There are two sections in the questionnaire: (1) personal data, (2) students’ motivational levels (intrinsic or extrinsic motivation), and their learning strategies The first section is about respondents’ personal information such as gender, age, majored and course The second section consists of two parts: (1) reasons for learning English and (2) metacognitive strategies in learning process The first part states 18 reasons for learning English in two categorizes: 7 items for intrinsic motivation and 11 items for extrinsic motivation In addition, the second part consists of 15 statements about metacognitive strategies (3 statements for planning, 3 statements for monitoring, and 3 statements for evaluating) In the Questionnaire, the students have to indicate the degree to which they agree with each statement according to a 4-point Likert scale ranging from 1 to 4: 1: strongly disagree

2: disagree 3: agree 4: strongly agree

Table 3.1: Taxonomy of the questionnaire items

strategies

Evaluating 19, 24, 29, 31, 32

3.4 Procedures

The data collection was carried out during 3weeks from 14th, March to 3rd, April 2011 Before the administration of the study, a pilot study was conducted

3.4.1 Piloting the study

Prior to the official of the questionnaire, the questionnaire was piloted with 31 non-majored English students The aim of the pilot was to check word formation in both English version and Vietnamese version and the reliability of the questionnaire and the separate items in the questionnaire

Before the piloting process, two English teachers checked the Vietnamese version and made corrections to make the questionnaire easier to read for General English students As a result, the questionnaire was revised to replace certain unclear terms or vocabularies For example, item 19 was changed from “Tôi đánh giá lại các kết quả để cải thiện chúng.” into “Sau khi khóa học kết thúc, tôi đánh giá lại các kết quả để cải thiện.”

In the pilot phase, the researcher administrated the Vietnamese version of questionnaire following these steps: (1) delivering the Vietnamese questionnaire, (2) guiding students to fill their personal information and the questionnaire, (3) explaining unclear items for the students, and (4) collecting the questionnaire completed Since there were no questions from the students, it can be concluded that the Questionnaire

is very easy and clear for General English students to complete

Data from the pilot was then used to measure the questionnaire reliability using Statistical Package for the Social science s (SPSS version 16) According to Kline (1999), the general accepted value of reliability, alpha is from 0.7 for cognitive tests

It was found that the overall reliability coefficient of this questionnaire was relatively high (= 0.84) and the reliability coefficients of each cluster are the reliability of extrinsic cluster = 0.82, the reliability of intrinsic cluster = 0.83, the reliability of extrinsic cluster = 0.84; thus reflecting a good reliability of instrument Therefore, the questionnaire was used to collect data in the empirical research

3.4.2 The official study

After piloting, the reliability coefficient was accepted (= 0.84), the data collection was then officially administered in three groups of General English students Before delivering the questionnaire, the researcher contacted with the teachers of three groups for permission

In the official phase, the number of students participating is 110 non-majored English students They were informed of the objectives and purpose of the study They were also emphasized that there was no right or wrong answers and that they should state their true and honest responses on each item The questionnaire was delivered to students, they were asked to give their personal information The researcher gave detailed instructions and explanations about how to fill out the questionnaire After that, the questionnaire was collected upon completion; students were requested to check their responses for incompleteness or missing answers

Data was subjected to Statistical Package for the Social sciences The researcher ran scale test to test the reliability of the questionnaire The reliability coefficient of the questionnaire was relatively high (= 0.87) Then the Descriptive Statistics Test was used to find out students’ motivation and their frequency use of metacognitive strategies Hence, correlation analyses were used to investigate their relationship

3.5 Data analysis

Data collected from the questionnaire was analyzed using SPSS for window version 16.0 Descriptive analyses (mean, median, mode, and standard deviations) were used to investigate participants’ motivation and metacognitive strategies for English learning The correlation analysis (Person- moment) was conducted to find out the relationships between the students’ motivation and metacognitive strategies

Chapter 4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The research methodology of the study was presented in the previous chapter The results for each research question will be displayed in this chapter Based on the findings of the study, some discussions will be withdrawn

4.1 Normal distribution of data

Before any analysis, it is important to assure that data of the study are normally distributed Therefore, statistics of skewness and kurtosis of each question were checked Skewness and kurtosis of each question are displayed in Table 4.1

Table 4.1: Descriptive statistics of students’ motivation

and metacognitive strategies (N= 110)

Mode Median Mean SD Skewness Kurtosis

4.2 Descriptive statistic of students’ motivation

In answer to research question 1: “Are non-majored English students intrinsically or extrinsically motivated?” the descriptive analyses were employed After all variables in the questionnaire were analyzed, the mean scores (M), median, mode, standard deviation (SD) of each type of motivation is presented in Table 4.2

Table 4.2: Descriptive statistics of students’ motivation (N= 110)

Figure 4.1 Mean scores of two motivational types

The mean scores of two motivational types

to Table 4.2, but the disparity between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation is not high In general, non-majored English students at CTU are highly motivated to learn English language with the mean scores of two motivational types from 2.7 to 2.96 out of 4.00 (M  3.00) It can be found that non-majored English students of CTU learn English because of extrinsic as well as extrinsic reasons

This result is in accordance with the findings of Samsiah Bidin et al (2009) that the respondents are more extrinsically motivated than intrinsically motivated in learning English It is also the same as the results in the research of Hsin-Hui Chang (2005) that most students learned English for external reasons instead of internal

Type of motivation Mean (M) Mode Median SD

EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION 2.96 1.86 3.86 39

INTRINSIC MOTIVATION 2.70 2.00 5.64 42