English Learning Motivation Of Senior High School Students From The Perspective Of Self-determination Theory:A Survey Study

This paper aims to survey Chinese senior high school students' English learning motivation based on the Self-determination Theory(Deci & Ryan 1985).That theory puts forward a motivation process theory about human behavior of self-determination.Current researchers at home and abroad haven't used this theory to study Chinese learners' English learning motivation.This paper will validate the Self-determination Theory by questionnaire in the hopes to provide a new direction for the research on Chinese students' motivation.Confirmatory factor analysis of survey data validated six factors of self-determination theory.Two research methods were used in the thesis,including questionnaire and interview methods.The participants of questionnaire were 200 students of Year 11 coming from the No.4 Middle School of Chi Feng,Inner Mongolia.Confirmatory factor analysis of the questionnaire data indicated that there are six factors of regulatory styles(i.e.intrinsic knowledge,intrinsic accomplishment,integrated regulation,identified regulation,introjected regulation and external regulation)in that context.Six students were selected as the interview participants.Thematic analysis of the interview data revealed that integrated regulation is the most important regulatory style.Based on the above questionnaire and interview results,this thesis suggests that senior high school students should internalize their English learning motivation and improve their interest in English learning.This thesis also implicates that senior high school English teachers should do their best to internalize students' behavior of English language learning into their own goals and needs so that students could aspire to become a good language learner.