Assessing motivational factors in foreign language learning: Cultural variation in key constructs

Rueda, R. & Chen, C. (2005). Assessing motivational factors in foreign language learning: Cultural variation in key constructs, Educational Assessment, 10(3), 209-229.

Rueda and Chen (2005) argued that in foreign language learning cultural differences in motivation had not been taken account and criticized the existing models of motivation for saying they were developed from a western perspective only. Thus, the purpose of their study was to investigate the extent to which the motivational factors impact the learning of Asian heriage and non-Asian heritage learners of Chinese language. One hundred fifty university students comprising 116 Asian heritage and 34 non-Asian heritage learnners took two kinds of instruments. The first kind was motivation questionnaire. No scree plot, factor loadings, eigen values were reported, but seven factors were extracted, namely instrumentality, intrinsic motivation, passivity toward requirements, task value, belief about effort, seld-efficacy, and effort develoted to target language learning. The second kind was learning outcomes questionnaire. No descriptive statistics were reported and assumptions prior to conducting t-tests, correlation, and structural equation modeling were not mentioned. The results of the t-test showed that there was a significant difference in the passitivity toawrd requirements factor. The causual relationships among the seven factors were displayed, but no chi-square value and fit indexes were reported. It showed that task value was the best predictor of effort devoted factor. In conclusion, they mentioned that there was no significant difference in terms of their motivational belifes, but argued that motivational constucts were influenced by cultural factors.