A multiple goal analysis of female Japanese university students' general academic motivation and motivation towards EFL.

要旨

Abstract This purpose of this study was to examine the motivation of first-year female Japanese university students towards university study in general and towards the study of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in particular. The study used Maehr’s multiple goal model of Personal Investment (Maehr, 1984; Maehr & Braskamp, 1986), as its theoretical basis. Two forms of a bilingual Inventory of University Motivation (IUM) were created. One refers to university study in general, the IUMGen; the other refers specifically to the study of EFL, the IUM-Eng. The two forms of the IUM were adaptations of McInerney’s Inventory of School Motivation (ISM) (McInerney, Roche, McInerney, & Marsh, 1997; McInerney & Sinclair, 1991; McInerney & Swisher, 1995), and were also translated into Japanese and then backtranslated. Data from these questionnaires were collected from 501 first year university students at a Japanese women’s university and analysed using four sets of exploratory Principal Components Analyses (PCA). These analyses produced clear scales with solid loadings, thus supporting the construct validity of the instrument. Each scale had strong reliability as measured by Cronbach’s alpha. Mean scales, based on the items loading on the derived factors, were used to develop an overall motivational profile of the students. Some features of this profile contradicted strongly held beliefs about Japanese university students’ lack of motivation, as well as about their supposed collectivist qualities. Other features provided support for the argument that the study of EFL is important to female Japanese university students, suggesting that English ability is perceived as a skill which can provide them with attractive personal and professional possibilities. Abstract Multivariate Analyses of Variance (MANOVA) were conducted, with the independent variable being the three university departments to which the students belonged, in order to determine the significant differences amongst these three groups of students on these scales. As expected, students in the Department of British and American Studies were found to have significantly higher values for most of the scales of the IUM-Eng than students in either of the other two departments. Surprisingly, similar significant differences were also produced on the majority of scales of the IUM-Gen, suggesting that there is an important relationship between EFL motivation and general university study motivation for female Japanese university students.Multivariate Analyses of Variance (MANOVA) were conducted, with the independent variable being the three university departments to which the students belonged, in order to determine the significant differences amongst these three groups of students on these scales. As expected, students in the Department of British and American Studies were found to have significantly higher values for most of the scales of the IUM-Eng than students in either of the other two departments. Surprisingly, similar significant differences were also produced on the majority of scales of the IUM-Gen, suggesting that there is an important relationship between EFL motivation and general university study motivation for female Japanese university students. Outcome measures of academic English proficiency as measured by Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) scores, and end-of-semester grades for compulsory English classes, were also collected from the students. Multiple regression analyses were performed using the resulting scales of the IUM-Gen and IUM-Eng separately against the above outcome measures. Significant relationships were found between some of the predictor variables, the scales of the two forms of the IUM, and some of the criterion variables, the outcome measures. The three IUM-Eng subscales of Sense of Competence in English, Competition in English, and Social Concern in English (negative), and the two IUM-Gen subscales of Affiliation at University and Selfesteem at

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