Possible Selves, Goals and Dynamics of EFL Motivation of Non-English Major Students in a Newly Established Local Undergraduate Chinese University: A longitudinal qualitative investigation

Abstract

Informed by the corpus of psychological and language motivation research, this thesis seeks to identify, contextualise and understand non-English major students’ English as a foreign language (EFL) motivation in a newly established local universities (NELU), including their possible selves and goals, as they complete their last compulsory English subject. An extensive literature review suggests that motivation studies of Chinese (EFL) learners have paid disproportionally less attention to non-English major students in newly established local universities (NELU) which enrol approximately half of undergraduate students in China than their high status counterparts. The current thesis focuses on the stable and dynamic components of their L2 motivation system. A participant-selection variant of mixed methods design (Creswell & Clark, 2011) was used. There were two phases of data collections in this thesis. Phase One sought to establish students’ motivational profiles through quantitative cluster analysis. Questionnaire data were collected using (1) the Second Language Motivational Self System (L2MSS) developed by Taguchi, Magid, and Papi (2009) and (2) the Inventory of University Motivation – English as a Foreign Language (IUM-EFL) scales developed by Da Silva and his colleagues (Da Silva, 2006a; Da Silva & McInerney, 2005; Da Silva et al., 2006). Four hundred and eighty-three non-English major students from a NELU voluntarily completed the questionnaire. Cluster analysis of the questionnaire data identified three main groups. The first group comprised of students who studied English for predominantly instrumental reasons including for use within their future career (N =160). The second group included those studying to meet the required English achievement scores and these students had less instrumental motivation than the first group (N =198). The third group was comprised of students who were largely disengaged and amotivated to learn English (N =12). In Phase Two, five to six representative students from each cluster were invited to participate in semi-structured interviews (N = 15). Four interviews were conducted with each participant. Interviews one and two were conducted in the second semester of their first year; interviews three and four were conducted when interviewees were in the first semester of their second year. Interview data analysis revealed a number of significant and useful findings about student EFL motivation. Fulfilling one’s duty to parents, gaining face and, importantly, not losing face, provided powerful explanatory narratives for the EFL motivation. The pervasive Chinese social practices of the guanxi (关系) of parents-student-teachers in school and university, the belief of ‘a well-educated person is superior to others in society (万般皆下品，惟有读书高)’, the social phenomenon of ‘one examination determines one's whole life (一考定终身)’ and the context of ‘graduation is unemployment (毕业即失业)’ were found to shape and drive their EFL motivation, although the form of these practices changed from school to university. The thesis has contributed to a significant understanding of the nature of L2 motivation of non-English major students in Chinese NELU. L2 motivation was best understood as culturally-bounded, situation-specific and dynamic, deviating from the general understanding of L2 motivation presented in contemporary mainstream L2 motivation research. Limitations and recommendations for future research and pedagogical implications are articulated.