A Study On The Relationship Between Non-English Major Postgraduates' Motivation And Their English Achievement

As one of the most important affective factors in English learning, motivation hasgreat influences on both the learning process and result. Motivation has been animportant topic in the studies of second language acquisition. Gardner and Lambert(1959) pioneer on motivation in second language acquisition, proposing asocio-educational model, which affects the following related researches to a large extent.Since the 1990s, the studies on motivation have been into a multiple era, many moreinvestigations have been carried out in behavioral, cognitive and social constructivistperspectives, which further promote the studies on motivation. With reference towestern motivational theories, more and more researches have been implemented toinvestigate English learning motivation in the Chinese context.Although there have been considerable surveys and studies related to motivation insecond language acquisition, almost no empirical researches on the relationshipsbetween types of motivation and non-English major postgraduates' English achievementhave been done in the Chinese context. This thesis is to make an investigation in thisarea, hoping that the results of this research will be helpful to non-English majorpostgraduate English teaching and learning.In order to fulfill the research purpose, the author has conducted a survey among92 non-English major postgraduates from University of Electronic Science andTechnology of China by means of a questionnaire to investigate their motivation inEnglish learning. The questionnaire was designed according to Gao Yihong's (2003)Motivation Type Scale, but some items have been changed to be appropriate to theparticular situations under this research. The statistical analyses employed aredescriptive statistics and correlation analysis by SPSSll.5.The study results show that instrumental, cultural-and situational motivations arethe types of motivation non-English major postgraduates commonly have. Among them,instrumental motivation stands at the top place. The followings are cultural motivationand situational motivation. As to the relationships between types of motivation and the postgraduates' English achievement, there is a significant and positive correlationbetween cultural motivation and the learners' English achievement.In the light of this research, the thesis also provides some suggestions forenhancing students' cultural motivation, such as providing learners with the knowledgeof the target culture, arousing students' intrinsic interest in English learning, etc.