A Self-Determination Theory Perspective
An Empirical Study on Motivations of Chinese College Students Learning ESP:
A Self-Determination Theory Perspective
Abstract: This empirical study mainly investigates the motivational orientations of Chinese college students studying English for Specific Purposes (ESP) learning, which can be categorized as a specific part of the L2 learning. By adopting a Self-Determination Theory (SDT) perspective and taking results of recent empirical studies on L2 learning into account, the researcher designed a questionnaire to investigate those non-English major students who learn ESP during their junior year in a globalization-oriented university in South China. Since ESP is different from EGP (English for General Purposes) in that ESP is more concentrated
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Therefore it is necessary to conduct an empirical research to investigate their major motivational orientations, mainly under the distinction of Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivations (Deci and Ryan, 1985, 1995), and to better understand their true motivations. Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, a globalization-oriented university in South China, requires the students to learn English of different types and levels and demonstrate their adequate competence in this language. Such a university offers a well-suited setting for this kind of …show more content…
The background is that most college students in China are required to obtain a CET4 (College English Test Band 4) or CET6 or BEC (Business English Certificate) certificate to graduate and even to find a decent job. Similarly, Shi (2003) carried out a study of motivation among 78 students at a Chinese university and found that the majority of the participants agreed to the item ‘I learn English in order to pass exams and obtain the diploma’. Shi therefore concludes that Chinese students had a ‘certificate motivation’, which is categorized as a sub-type of instrumental motivation by the researcher. In a study investigating the motivation types of English learning among Chinese undergraduates, GAO et al. (2004, 60) suggest that ‘[t]he classical instrumental-integrative division has not precisely accommodated the subtle and multi-folded motivations of the Chinese learners’.
Therefore the researcher developed a valid and reliable instrument within the SDT framework, rather than the instrumental-integrative division. It is based on the original research carried out by a Kimberly A. Noels (2003), to assess the different subtypes of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations of those Chinese college students learning
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