Attitudes and Motivation of Turkish Undergraduate EFL Students towards Learning English Language

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the attitudes and motivation of first-year Turkish undergraduates toward English language learning as a foreign language. The study was carried out with 90 students majoring in business studies at Cag University, Mersin in Turkey by administering a survey designed on a five-point Likert scale with 43 items including demographic questions about the learners’ background information such as gender, age, and how long they have been learning English. The items on the survey were chosen from Dörnyei and Csizér (2006) in a variety of Hungarian researches and from a recently designed questionnaire by Ryan (2005). The domains used for the purpose of the study were: integrativeness, attitudes to L2 community, cultural interest, attitudes to learning English, criterion measures, ideal L2 self, ought-to L2 self, family influence, instrumentality (promotion and prevention), and fear of assimilation.

The data collected were analysed through descriptive statistics in SPSS statistical program. The results revealed that Turkish first-year university students learn English as a foreign language mostly for instrumental reasons, and it also showed that integrative motivation is dominant motivational orientation for the participants in some degree.