An Empirical Study On The Interrelations Of College Non-English Majors' Motivation Types, Motivational Intensity And English Achievement

The dissertation is concerned with an empirical study of motivation among non-English major undergraduates studying in Chinese universities. The aim of the study is to investigate non-English majors'motivation types and explore the interrelations among motivation types, motivational intensity and English achievement. The study also presents some implications for College English teaching and learning in Chinese context.The data were collected from the questionnaires based on the related literature which are composed of three parts: personal information, Gao Yihong's motivation type scale and motivational intensity scale. The participants were 224 non-English major sophomores from Linyi Normal University and Qingdao University in Shandong Province who were asked to complete the questionnaires. Then all the data were subjected to statistical analysis with the system of Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS11.5), which includes: 1) factor analysis which is aimed to classify types of student FL motivation; 2) Correlational analysis of motivational types, motivational intensity and achievement; 3) MANOVA to identify if there are any significant differences between high-achieving group and low-achieving group with regard to motivation type and motivational intensity; and 4) REGRESSION to find causal relationship between motivation types, motivational intensity and English achievement. The present research has yielded the following findings:1) Chinese college students present three types of motivation for their English learning: cultural, instrumental and situational, as well as six sub-types of motivation (intrinsic interest, individual development, immediate achievement, going abroad, social...