The Study on 3rd Grade Chinese Primary Student’s English Learning Motivation： Is there a difference between urban and rural student

郭蓓蕾

【Abstract】This paper aimed at exploring Chinese primary students English-learning orientation from the perspective of various L2 motivation concepts. The particular interest of this research was the investigation of whether or not there were any differencesin terms of motivation among urban and rural students and reasons behind the difference. The participants comprised 30 3rd grade primary students from Heze Experimental Primary School. A set of questionnaire was used to collected data. The findings indicate that urban students displayed a significantly higher level of motivation than rural students. The results also showed that urban students are more intrinsic-oriented and active in English learning while rural students are more instrumental-oriented and passive. Future research drawn from this research were presented in the end.

【Key words】urban students; rural students; learning motivation; motivation orientation

【摘要】本篇文章旨在從第二語言習(xí)得動機(jī)方面研究中國小學(xué)學(xué)生的英語學(xué)習(xí)動機(jī)。本文調(diào)查了城市學(xué)生和農(nóng)村學(xué)生之間的學(xué)習(xí)動機(jī)差異及其背后的原因。共30名來自菏澤牡丹區(qū)實驗小學(xué)的學(xué)生參與了本次研究。一整套原創(chuàng)調(diào)查問卷發(fā)放并收集了參與者的信息和意見。本文研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，與農(nóng)村學(xué)生相比，城市學(xué)生展現(xiàn)出了更高程度的學(xué)習(xí)動機(jī)。調(diào)查結(jié)果同時顯示，城市學(xué)生在英語學(xué)習(xí)中表現(xiàn)相對主動而農(nóng)村學(xué)生則相對被動。基于本文研究結(jié)果，相關(guān)未來研究將在結(jié)尾部分提出。

【關(guān)鍵詞】城市學(xué)生 農(nóng)村學(xué)生 學(xué)習(xí)動機(jī) 動機(jī)取向

1. Introduction

Motivation， as one of the most important variables that impacts language-learning outcomes （D?rnyei， 1998）， has been studied and explored by many scholars within the context of EFL in recent decades. However， few studies have been done on the contrast between Chinese primary urban and rural students motivation.

In China， students are assigned to a school according to their home address. In fact， many parents， especially the ones who live in the rural areas， tend to send their children to better schools in the city. From my personal teaching observation as a primary school teacher， I have found from time to time that most rural students tend to show less enthusiasm when it comes to learning English compared to their urban classmates. These observations have triggered the present study， which aims to explore 3rd grade Chinese students motivation for studying English， with an emphasis on comparison and contrast between urban and rural students.A set of motivation-orientation questionnaire was distributed among participants in order to answer the following two questions：

a. Is there any difference between Chinese primary urban and rural students English-leaning motivation？

b. Which motivation orientation has the strongest influence on urban and rural students？endprint

2. Literature Review

Motivation， as defined by Chang （1997）， is an internal force，which prompts an individual to develop an inclination toward various behaviours. In the second language （L2） acquisition context， motivation not only effects students learningprocess but also their performance and achievements. Therefore， in the past few decades， numerous research works have been generated onmotivation.

Gardner and his colleagues proposed the socio-educational model （Gardner 1985）. This model aims to explore learners motivation from a social and cultural perspective and introduces two key types of orientations to the L2-motivation research. Integrative orientation refers to an openness toward the target-language group and the interest to interact with it. Instrumental orientation， as a counterpart of integrative orientation， is about learning the target language for pragmatic reasons. However， with the development of the global status of English， the integrative orientation has been questioned by many scholars.

Because of the limitation of Gardners theory， various research works were carried outduring the 1990s to emphasiseon an individuals cognitive aspects of motivation （D?rnyei， 1990）. Deci and Ryan （1985） developed the self-determination theory， which made a distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic of motivation.Extrinsic Motivation refers to behaviour that is driven by external rewards， while intrinsic motivation refers to behaviour that is driven by inherent pleasure.

Apart from the literature mentioned above， there are many other influential motivation theories， such as expectancy-value theories， which deeply influenced the L2 motivation research area， and they have their own way of classifying rules. However， the questionnaire only adapted Gardners socio-educational model and the self-determination theory due to the length of the research. In the next section，the usage of the motivation-orientation questionnaire to collect data will be discussed.

3. Methodology

3.1 Participants

The total number of participants in this study were 30 pupils who were placed into two groups based on their household registration， each group have 15 students. All of the participants comes from the 3rd grade of Heze Experimental Primary School， and they were randomly chosen by according to their willingness to participate. The survey wasconducted in a regular classroom setting andwas permitted by students guardians. The participants were given 20 minutes to finish the questionnaire and were informed that the data collection would maintain confidentiality and anonymity.endprint

3.2 Instrument

As a flexible and efficient tool， a questionnaire was designed to assess students language-learning motivation. The questionnaire was originally developed in English. However， aset of the Chinese version of the questionnaire wasalso distributed among the participants，in consideration of their elementary language level. There were two sections in the questionnaire： student profile and motivation orientations. The first section aimed to collect students background information. Adapted from the Attitudes and Motivation Test Battery （Gardner & Lambert， 1972）， the second section was designed to determine the extent to which students wanted to learn English. The motivation-orientation questionnairehad 20 items，whichcoveredthe four following different motivation orientations： integrative orientation （Items 1 to 5）， instrumental orientation （Items 6 to 10）， intrinsic orientation （Items 11 to 15）， and intrinsic orientation （Items 16 to 20）. All the items utiliseda Likert scale ranging from 1 to 5.

3.3 Data analysis

In order to analyse the data collected by the questionnaire， three kinds of analyses were conducted. To start by discussing the reliability of the motivational clusters， an internal consistency test was used with the help of SPSS 20. Following this， a t-test was run to determine if there was any significant difference betweenthe learning motivation of the two kinds of students. Finally， descriptive statistics were calculated and summarised.

According to Anderson （1989）， multi-item scales are only effective if the items work together in a homogenous manner. Hence， the homogeneity of four different orientations was checked by an internal consistency test.

Integrative

Orientation

（5 items） Instrumental Orientation

（5 items） Intrinsic

Orientation

（5 items） Extrinsic

Orientation

（5 items）

0.359 0.595 0.696 0.810

Table 3.2 ?Internal consistency reliability of the four orientations

In Table 3.2， it can be seen that the instrumental， intrinsic， and extrinsic clusters are around and above 0.70. This indicates that the results of internal consistency reliability analysis of the four clusters was demonstrably in the acceptable range. Table3.2 also indicates that the integrative orientations have rather low Cronbach Alphas. This was due to a flaw in the questionnaire design. Item 5 （I learn English because I am interested in it）was not correlated with the other items， and it received many ‘strongly disagree answers.endprint

4. Findings

The study aims to explore Chinese primary students motivation for English learning with an emphasis on a comparison and contrast between urban and rural students motivation. First， a t-test was conducted to determine the effect of group differences on the dependent variable. From the test result， some items thatshow great significance can be drawn. They arelisted in Table 4.1.

Sig.

Integrative

Item 2： to understand foreign culture 0.006

Item 3： to converse with people 0.006

Item 4： to travel/study abroad 0.005

Instrumental

Item 5： interested in English 0.035

Item 6： to survive abroad 0.046

Intrinsic

Item 11： belief to be good at English 0.000

Item 13： to gain happiness 0.000

Item 15： to gain confidence 0.018

Table 4.1 T-test results for urban and rural students

It can be seen that there is an obvious difference in terms of integrative， instrumental， and intrinsic orientationbetween urban and rural students as 2 or 3 out of 5 items of these orientations have a Sig. Value， which is lower than 0.05. Especially in the intrinsic orientation， the Sig. Value of items 11 and 13 are both 0.000， which suggests that the variability in the two kinds of students is significantly different. At the same time， there is no significant difference in terms of extrinsic orientation.These findings suggest that generally，the urban students havea stronger orientation， more positive attitudes， and a higher motivation toward language learning than the rural students.

Finally， a descriptive statistics analysis was conductedto reveal which kind of orientation is the main determinant of the two types of students. From the result of descriptive statistics， the three most popular items have been concluded in Table 4.2.

Mean Rank（in

terms of mean）

Urban Students

Item 11 （intrinsic）： belief to be good at English 1.0667 1

Item 2 （integrative）： to understand foreign culture 1.2000 2

Item 7 （instrumental）： for future studies 1.2000 2

Item 12 （intrinsic）： for honour 1.2000 2

Rural Student

Item 6 （instrumental）： to survive abroad 1.4000 1

Item 2 （integrative）： to understand foreign culture 1.5333 2

Item 10 （instrumental）： to understand English literature 1.6000 3

Table 4.2 ?Participants motivation for studying English

From table above， it can be concluded that urban students were more intrinsic-orientated while rural students were more instrumental-orientated. In other words， urban students were generally more active while rural students were more passive in the learning process. Meanwhile， none of the items which belonged to the extrinsic orientation made it to the top three. Hence， it can be assumed that both urban and rural students did not study English due to external pressure.endprint

5. Discussion

5.1 Family background

Through a detailed analysis of the questionnaire results， the hypothesis proposed at the beginning of the article has been partly proved. It cant be denied thatin the target school， 3rd grade urban students indeed show a more positive attitude and a stronger motivation than the rural students in terms of English-language learning. Various reasons，which involve social and cultural factors are hiding behind this phenomenon. From the background information of students collected by the questionnaire， a few of the influencing factors can be drawn （see table 5.1）.

Mean

（in terms of the last three English examinations） Percentage

Have English speaking family members Attend after-school English institute Live in boarding houses or home stays Have more than one siblings

Urban students 90.06 100% 33% 6% 27%

Rural students 70.33 73% 20% 33% 57%

Table 5.1 ?Background information of the urban and rural students

Many studies observed a remarkable correlation between family environment and students academic achievement （Burkam， 2003）. According to Jencks （1972）， children from families witha high socio-economic status tend to display better academic performance in school than the children from families belonging to a lower socio-economic status. Due to the small size of the research， only three main family-background variables have been highlighted in this paper： family members educational level， after-school educational resources， and study environment.

It is widely believed that the educational status of the family members， especially parents， is related to the childrens language-learning motivation （Stevenson and Baker， 1987）.From table 5.1， it is suggested that urban students parents tend to have a higher education level since 100% of them speak in English. Hence， the urban students tend to get more opportunities to practice the target language since high educational level parents tend to invest more money and time into their childrens education. This tendency is also reflected in the questionnaire analysis results. The results show that 33% of urban students attend after school institutes to improve their English while20% of rural students do the same. Nevertheless， many rural students do not live with their parents since they need to stay in the city for their studies. Therefore， a large amount （33%） of rural students actually live in boarding schools or home stays， which provide relatively low parental support and control. Finally， it is suggested by Teachman （1987） that a less physically-crowded family environment is associated with better school performance. Table 4.1 shows that 57% of rural students have more than one siblings， while only 27% of urban students have the same. Surely， there are more reasons that influence students motivation and educational attainment，which are not reflected in the results of this questionnaire due to the small size of the research.endprint

5.2 Limitations

There are some limitations to this study. Frist， the data were collected fromjust one primary school， and hence， the sample population might not representative of the majority of the pupils in China. Second， there were only 20 items in the questionnaire， which represent four orientations. Many other orientations and motivation theorieswere not reflected in the questionnaire. In addition， the study only involved a single data-collection event and opinions from the teachers and parents are missing. Finally， the validity of self-report questionnaire has been questioned by many researchers. According to Skehan （1989）， respondents can make a fairly good guess about what the expected answer is， and some of them will provide this response even if it is not true. Hence， the result of the questionnaire may not be a hundred percent true.

5.3 Future studies

This study suggests an attention on the understating of the motivational dynamics in Chinese primary students.More study is required to understand how motivational strategies are beneficial for rural students since the research suggests that rural studentstend to have relatively low motivation levels when it comes to English-language learning.

6. Conclusion

This study investigated 3rd grade Chinese students motivation with an emphasis on the comparison and contrast between urban and rural students. A set of questionnairewas distributed among 30 participants. The findings show that there is a significant different between urban and rural students which is urban students tend to be intrinsic-oriented and active when it comes to the learning process while rural students tend to be more instrumental-oriented and passive. This requires English teachers to pay more attention to the rural students and use motivational strategies to motivate them to learn in the future English-language teaching. It is conceivable that the rural learners will eventually overcome the difficulties involved in learning English and become autonomous learners with the help of appropriate learning and motivational strategies.

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