Psychological Attributes in Foreign Language Reading: An Explorative Study of Japanese College Students

要旨

This study explores the internal structure of psychological attributes (i.e., motivation, belief and emotion) related to foreign language reading (FLR) (hereafter FLR attributes) and checks the utility of existing FLR attribute measurements for the specific learner group (i.e., Japanese university students studying English as their foreign language). 63 students who fall into the above learner group responded to the questionnaire survey. The results of descriptive statistics and correlation analysis uncover the following: (a) five out of nine indexes are in need of measurement reconstruction and revalidation; (b) the taxonomy of learning motivation proposed by the selfdetermination theory is partially confirmed in that lack of motivation is a different motivational facet from more internalized ones; (c) FLR motivation can develop along with the self-efficacy belief in FLR (RSE); and (d) anxiety toward FLR shows its sensitivity toward the changes in learners’ motivational states and the degree of RSE.

主題