A Study On English Learning Motivation Types And Self-Identity Changes Of Chinese Graduate Students

Motivation is one of the most important aspects of language learner's psychological factors and individual differences in learning a foreign language. Previous studies have shown that it has significant influence on the whole process and outcome of the foreign language learning. While as a non-linguistic outcome of language learning, self-identity change has arose more and more attention of researchers. This thesis is concerned with an empirical study of motivation types and self-identity changes among postgraduates in China, investigating their motivation types and exploring the interrelationship between their motivation types and self-identity changes, which extends the previous studies. This study also examines effects of demographic features to obtain possible group variations in motivation types and in self-identity changes, and presents some implications for English teaching and learning in Chinese context.The participants of this study are postgraduate students. The data are collected from the questionnaire based on motivation theories on relevant literature consisting of three parts: personal information part, a motivation questionnaire and a self-identity change scale. All data were analyzed with the system of Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS 11.5). The results of the current study show:1) Motivation of postgraduates can be classified into five types: intrinsic interest, instrumentality, information medium, individual development and immediate achievement. Group (divided by demographic features such as grade, gender, major, family background and English proficiency) differences on motivation types do exist.2) Two major findings concerning their self-identity changes associate with English learning: on the one hand, learners'perception of their own competence is the part of identity that is affected most by English learning; on the other, productive bilingualism is in the reach of students and it is quite common among them. The effect of some demographic features on self-identity changes is also found.3) Results of the canonical correlation analysis prove that motivation types and self-identity changes are correlated, and show experimental evidence to the theory saying intrinsic motivation is more powerful than extrinsic motivation.Some helpful findings in the educational nature of language learning have been demonstrated, based on which some tentative suggestions have been put forward. It is hoped that the current study concerning motivation types and self-identity changes could bring more research in this field in the future.