Investigating More Effective and Less Effective EFL Learners ’ Attitudes and Motivational Orientation

The present study investigated the differences in attitudes and motivation between more effective and less effective learners studying at the first year of graduate university program. Based on this aim, first, the researcher developed the three-part 35-item attitude-motivation questionnaire of the present study based on the AMTB developed by Gardner (1985). Second, he selected 441 students (224 male & 217 female) studying at the first year of their graduate program at universities in East Azarbayjan province (Iran) as the participants of the study. Third, he administered the questionnaire of the study to the selected participants and asked them to complete it. Finally, he analyzed the data of the study in order to answer the mentioned research questions. The chi-square test was utilized to analyze the collected data of the study. The results of the study showed that there were significant differences between more effective and less effective learners’ attitudes and motivation. Based on the results of the study, it was argued that, the EFL syllabus designers and teachers should help the learners to become aware of their attitudes, and motivational orientations. Furthermore, they should make an effort to tailor classroom materials and classroom teaching to the EFL learners’ individual differences.


INTRODUCTION
Individual learner differences have been an enticing issue for researchers even before the development of the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) (Horwitz, 2000).These differences refer to the "enduring personal characteristics that are assumed to apply to everybody and on which people differ by degree" (Dörnyei, 2005, p. 4).In other words, they account for the learners' endmost grasp of the second language knowledge (Skehan, 1989).Horwitz (2000) pointed out that, these factors have acted as a benchmark to categorize the learners as good and bad, or smart and dull among the others.Nonetheless, recent studies of these variables have tended to use more neutral terms for marking the language learners such as field-dependent/independent and integratively and instrumentally motivated.Ellis (2008) contended that the transition to the neutral terms emanates from the fact that, while the former studies attempted to predict the successful learners for educational and vocational purposes, the more recent studies have endeavored to explicate the variation among the learners in terms of academic achievement.Nevertheless, the individual learner differences have received scant attention in SLA theories due in part to their investigation within the Differential approach to language acquisition which is the orthodox approach to learning in psycholinguistics and is not congruent with the Universalist approach which is favored in established research approach in SLA (Ellis, 1994).It is perspicuous that, this issue engenders a fragmentary understanding of the nature of language learning (Dörnyei, 2005).As a result, the formulation of an integrated SLA theory demands a thorough perusal of the individual learner differences (Segalowitz, 1997).
A close scrutiny of the relevant literature shows that, among the various learner-related factors, motivation and attitude have attracted the uttermost attention in second language acquisition (Bandura, 1993;Dörnyei, 1990;1994;1997, 2005;Gardner, 1985).An examination of the relevant empirical studies reveals that most of these studies (e.g.Benson, 1991;Gardner, 2001;Gardner & Lambert, 1972) have been conducted in second language learning contexts.Furthermore, the studies which have been carried out in foreign language contexts (e.g.Eshghinejad, 2016;Mokhtarnia & Ghafar-Samar, 2016) have employed a survey design to determine the learners' attitude and motivational orientation.Nonetheless, there is a lack of research in regard to the modifying impact of the language learners' personal factors including their effectiveness on their attitude and motivation.The present study tried to deal with this issue in the EFL context of Iran.To this end, the study tried to answer the following questions: 1. Are there any differences between the attitudes of more effective and less effective learners?
2. Are there any differences between the motivation of more effective and less effective learners?

Motivation
Motivation is one of the learner differences which have been extensively investigated in SLA (Linnenbrink & Pintrich, 2003;Pajares & Vakliante 1997;Yang, 1999).It involves "language learners' goals, their effortful behaviors, their desire to attain their goals, and their favorable attitudes toward the activity in question" (Gardner, 1985, p. 50).It "energizes and directs human behavior" (Dörnyei, 1998, p. 16).This learner factor is an indispensable aspect of the language learning process due to the fact that "without sufficient motivation, even individuals with the most remarkable abilities cannot accomplish long-term goals, and neither are appropriate curricula and good teaching enough on their own to ensure student achievement" (Dörnyei, 2005, p. 65).The early studies of motivation were carried by a number of psychologies (e.g.Gardner, 1980) who focused on intercultural communication in bilingual contexts (Cain & Dweck, 1995).These researchers adopted a social-psychological approach which stipulated that the language learners' attitudes toward the target culture were the key determiner of the language acquisition.It was claimed that, "the students' attitudes toward the specific language group are bound to influence how successful they will be in incorporating aspects of that language" (Gardner, 1985, p. 6).The social-psychological perspective tried to integrate the notions of individual and society in the empirical studies of motivation.In regard to education, this perspective endorsed the view that, unlike the other school subjects, language acquisition is affected by various social and cultural variables including learner attitudes (Bong & Clark, 1999).The social-psychological perspective has resulted in the development of Gardner's Socio-Educational Model of second language learning (e.g.Gardner 1983Gardner , 1985)).Gardner (1979) claimed that, in his model, "acquiring symbolic elements of a different ethno-linguistic community" (p.193) results in second language acquisition.Furthermore, he pointed out that, on the basis of this model, integrative motivation is an indispensable factor that affects the learners' success in second language acquisition.Integrative motivation comprises three fundamental constructs including: integrativeness, attitudes towards the learning situation, and motivation (Gardner & MacIntyre, 1993).Integrativeness refers to the language learners' orientation to integrate into the target language community.It shows the learners' interest in the target language, and highlights their positive attitudes towards the native people of the target language (Dörnyei, 1990).This construct underlines the "individual's willingness and interest in social interaction with members of other groups" (Gardner & MacIntyre, 1993, p. 159).Attitudes towards the learning situation manifest the way in which the language learners evaluate the language learning program and the performance of their instructor in the classroom (Dörnyei, 1994).Motivation refers to "language learners' goals, their effortful behaviors, their desire to attain their goals, and their favorable attitudes toward the activity in question" (Gardner, 1985, p. 50).Gardner (1985) developed the Attitude/Motivation Test Battery (AMTB) on the basis of the socio-educational model.AMTB is a questionnaire which appraises the language learners' integrative and instrumental motivations in the educational contexts.It is a self-report questionnaire which has acceptable reliability and validity indices.In addition to the mentioned constructs, this questionnaire involves a certain section with items that assess the learners' language anxiety.Moreover, one part of this instrument focuses on the role of parental encouragement in second language acquisition.

Attitude
Attitude refers to "the sum total of a man's instinctions and feelings, prejudice or bias, preconceived notions, fears, threats, and convictions about any specified topic" (Gardner, 1980, p. 267).It is "a hypothetical construct used to explain the direction and persistence of human behavior" (Baker, 1992, p. 10).In other words, it involves "a disposition to respond favorably or unfavorably to an object, person, institution, or event" (Ajzan, 1988, p. 4).Wenden (1991) distinguished three main components of attitude including: cognitive, affective, and behavioral components.As he explained, the cognitive component comprises a person's opinions regarding the essence of an object.The affective component focuses on the person's emotions towards the diverse aspects of an object.Lastly, the behavioral component reflects the actions of an individual which are done as a result of his/her intentions to deal with the relevant object.Gardner's (1983) socio-educational model of second language acquisition includes attitudes towards the learning situation (which includes attitudes towards the language teacher & language learning context) as a fundamental component of second language motivation.Gardner (1985) argued that, learner attitudes, which are an integral component of learner motivation, can be categorized to two main types including: social attitudes and cultural attitudes.Social attitudes involve "attitudes which focus on the cultural implications of second language acquisition" (Gardner, 1985, p. 41).Some examples for this type of attitude comprise "attitudes towards French Canadians, ethnocentrism, and anomie, for example gain their significance because they refer to the individuals' attitudinal disposition towards social groups, in-group or out-group which might influence second language acquisition" (p.42).Gardner (1985) pointed out that, attitude towards second language community is the most prominent type of social attitudes and stems from the language learners' beliefs in regard to the social structure and social rules of the target community.In other words, learners' social attitudes are influenced based on the compatibility between the social structure and rules on their native community and the target language community.Cultural attitudes, which are similar to social attitudes, are adopted during an individual's childhood as a result of three main factors including: the caretakers' attitudes, the person's own emotional experiences, and the person's exposure to the member of other cultural groups (Gardner, 1985).It is argued that, the cultural attitudes form an individual's perceived self and impact on his/her opinions of their native culture and target language culture, integrative motivation, and success in target language (Gardner, 1985).

METHOD The Participants of the Study
The participants of this study consisted of 441 students (224 male & 217 female) studying at the first year of their graduate program at universities in East Azarbayjan province (Iran).All of the students were chosen from among those who had taken the same University Entrance Examination administered by the Organization of Measurement and ranged in age from 18 to 22. Based on the results of this examination the participants were divided into two groups: a) more effective language learners with a grade of at least 66 on the 100 point entrance examination, and b) less effective learners with a grade of at most 33 on the 100 point entrance examination.According to this classification, there were 232 more effective and 209 less effective participants in the present study.

The Instrument of the Study
The data of the present study were collected by means of a three-part 35-item attitude-motivation questionnaire.The first part of this questionnaire intended to solicit the participants' personal information including their gender, age, native language, university major, and University Entrance Examination grade.The second part of this instrument was adapted from AMTB (Gardner, 1985) and measured the participants' language learning attitudes.It involved 17 items which were rated on a 4 point scale.(i.e., No, A Little, Good, & Best).Finally, the last part of the questionnaire intended to determine the participants' second language learning motivation.Similar to the second part, it was adapted from AMTB (Gardner, 1985) and comprised 18 items which were rated on a 4 point scale.(i.e.No, A Little, Good, & Best).The results of statistical analysis revealed that, the Cronbach's Alpha coefficient of this questionnaire was.85 which is considered to be acceptable (Pallant, 2007).Consequently, the questionnaire was regarded to be an appropriate instrument for the purpose of examining the learners' attitude and motivation.

The Procedure of the Study
According to the purpose of the study, first, the researcher developed the three-part 35-item attitude-motivation questionnaire of the present study based on the AMTB developed by Gardner (1985).Second, he selected 441 students (224 male & 217 female) studying at the first year of their graduate program at universities in East Azarbayjan province (Iran) as the participants of the study.Third, he administered the questionnaire of the study to the selected participants and asked them to complete it.Finally, he analyzed the data of the study in order to answer the mentioned research questions.The chi-square test was utilized to analyze the collected data of the study.

Data Analysis
The first research question investigated the differences between the attitudes of more effective and less effective learners.Based on the results of the analysis, there were differences between these groups in four items of the attitude part of the employed questionnaire of the study including: item 2, item 4, item 13, and item 14.These results are provided below: Item 2: If I can speak English, I will be respected by my family and relatives.
Table 1 provides the frequency and percentage of the differences between these groups in regard to item 2: A chi-square test for independence was employed to determine the statistical significance of the difference between these groups.Table 2 shows the results of this test: As shown in Table 2, there was a significant difference between the more effective and less effective EFL learners' responses to this item since the p-value.000(marked as Sig.) was less than the level of significance.05.This significant difference is shown in Figure 1:  Item 4: Being able to speak English shows that a person is classy and educated.
Table 3 provides the frequency and percentage of the differences between these groups in regard to item 4: A chi-square test for independence was employed to determine the statistical significance of the difference between these groups.Table 4 shows the results of this test: As shown in Table 4, there was a significant difference between the more effective and less effective EFL learners' responses to this item since the p-value.000(marked as Sig.) was less than the level of significance.05.This significant difference is shown in Figure 2: Item 13: I like to communicate with the native speakers of English and become familiar with their culture and lifestyle.
Table 5 provides the frequency and percentage of the differences between these groups in regard to item 13: A chi-square test for independence was employed to determine the statistical significance of the difference between these groups.Table 6 shows the results of this test: As shown in Table 6, there was a significant difference between the more effective and less effective EFL learners' responses to this item since the p-value.000(marked as Sig.) was less than the level of significance.05.This significant difference is shown in Figure 3: Item 14: I like English speaking countries and their people.
Table 7 provides the frequency and percentage of the differences between these groups in regard to item 14: A chi-square test for independence was employed to determine the statistical significance of the difference between these groups.Table 8 shows the results of this test: As shown in Table 14, there was a significant difference between the more effective and less effective EFL learners'   responses to this item since the p-value.000(marked as Sig.) was less than the level of significance.05.This significant difference is shown in Figure 4: The second research question examined the differences between the motivation of more effective and less effective learners.The results of the statistical analysis showed that, there were significant differences between these groups in three items including: item 21, item 28, and item 29.These results are provided below: Item 21: In order to have a better job.
Table 9 provides the frequency and percentage of the differences between these groups in regard to item 21: A chi-square test for independence was employed to determine the statistical significance of the difference between these groups.Table 10 shows the results of this test: As shown in Table 10, there was a significant difference between the more effective and less effective EFL learners' responses to this item since the p-value.000(marked as Sig.) was less than the level of significance.05.This significant difference is shown in Figure 5: Item 28: I want to be able to speak English.
Table 11 provides the frequency and percentage of the differences between these groups in regard to item 28: A chi-square test for independence was employed to determine the statistical significance of the difference between these groups.Table 12 shows the results of this test: As shown in Table 12, there was a significant difference between the more effective and less effective EFL learners' responses to this item since the p-value.000(marked as Sig.) was less than the level of significance.05.This significant difference is shown in Figure 6: Item 29: I want to become familiar with English speaking countries and their people's lifestyle.
Table 13 provides the frequency and percentage of the differences between these groups in regard to item 29: A chi-square test for independence was employed to determine the statistical significance of the difference between these groups.Table 14 shows the results of this test:      As shown in Table 14, there was a significant difference between the more effective and less effective EFL learners' responses to this item since the p-value.000(marked as Sig.) was less than the level of significance.05.This significant difference is shown in Figure 7:

Discussion
The first and the second research questions of the study aimed to determine the differences between the more effective and the less effective language learners' attitudes and motivation.Based on the results, there were significant differences between these groups' attitudes toward second language learning.More specifically, generally, the more effective had generally integrative attitudes while the less effective learners had instrumental attitudes.These results are in line with the results of studies by Spolsky (1969), Gardner and Lambert (1972), Gardner, Day andMacIntyre (1992), andCszér andDörnyei (2005).
These results may be attributed to favorable impacts of the integrative attitudes on the more effective language learners' learning behaviors both in the classroom and out of the classroom (Gardner et al., 1992).As, Cszér and Dörnyei (2005) noted, the learners with integrative attitudes seek learning opportunities in diverse settings and are not afraid of taking risks to learn the target language.They explained that, these learners are more ambiguity tolerant in comparison with their peers and tend to internalize the cultural aspects of the target language which are not in line with their own native culture.Nonetheless, the learners who have instrumental attitudes toward the learning of the target language are not likely to take risks or to internalize contradictory cultural characteristics.They prefer to learn the target language to attain particular objectives and may not seek to use the second language in everyday situational contexts.These issues may have detrimental impacts on these learners' language learning (Gardner et al., 1992).
In addition, the results indicated that, there were significant differences between the more effective and less effec-tive learners' motivation.More specifically, generally, the more effective language learners were intrinsically motivated to learner the target language whereas the less effective language learners were extrinsically motivated to acquire the second language.These results support the results of the studies by Dörnyei and Cszér (1998), Noels, Clemént and Pelletier (1999), Dörnyei (2001) and Wu (2003).
These results may be attributed to the more effective language learners' favorable feelings in regard to competence (Deci, 1975).Dörnyei (2001) stated that, the learners who are intrinsically motivated to acquire the target language develop a sense of achievement as a result of the second language acquisition.In other words, these learners' self-actualization stems from their learning and authentic use of the target language (Noels et al., 1999).Nevertheless, the learners who are extrinsically motivated to learn the target language are not likely to derive satisfaction from learning the target language.These learners pursue instrumental objectives in language learning and may not develop a sense of internal accomplishment as a result of second language acquisition (Dörnyei & Cszér, 1998).

CONCLUSION
The present study aimed to explore whether there were identifiable differences in attitudes and motivation between more effective and less effective learners studying at the first year of graduate university program in Tabriz, Iran.The results of the study showed that there were significant differences between more effective and less effective learners' attitudes and motivation.Based on the results of the study, it is recommended that, the EFL syllabus designers include specific attitude/motivation questionnaires in the EFL teaching materials of the language courses.These instruments will assist the language learners to determine their attitudinal and motivational orientations and will encourage them to adopt integrative attitudes toward the learning of the target language.Moreover, they may be helpful to strengthen the learners' intrinsic motivation in learning the target language.Similarly, it is suggested that, the EFL teachers make an endeavor to modify their learners' unfavorable attitudes and encourage them to adopt more positive attitudes toward the second language.Finally, it is recommended that, these teachers make an effort to reinforce their learners' intrinsic motivation to learn the target language.
Nonetheless, there is a need for further studies of learner factors in diverse learning contexts.It is recommended that, the researchers replicate the present study in second language contexts to reinforce its results.Moreover, it is suggested that, the researchers examine the impact of the participants' age and native language on the correlation between the individual learner differences and second language learning.Furthermore, it is recommended that, the future studies investigate the individual specific learner differences variables (e.g.intelligence, language aptitude, working memory, & self-esteem) which were not dealt with in the present study.In addition, it is suggested that, the future studies conduct different studies in diverse educational contexts such as schools and private institutes to determine the impact of var-

Figure 1 .Figure 2 .Figure 3 .Figure 4 .
Figure 1.The difference between more effective and less effective efl learners' preference degree regarding item 2

Figure 5 .Figure 6 .
Figure 5.The difference between more effective and less effective efl learners' preference degree regarding item 21

Table 1 .
Frequency and percentage of more effective and less effective EFL learners' preference degree regarding item 2

Table 2 .
Chi-square test of the more effective and less effective EFL learners' preferences degree regarding item2

Table 4 .
Chi-square test of the more effective and less effective EFL learners' preferences degree regarding item4

Table 5 .
Frequency and percentage of more effective and less effective EFL learners' preference degree regardingitem 13

Table 6 .
Chi-square test of the more effective and less effective EFL learners' preferences degree regarding item13

Table 7 .
Frequency and percentage of more effective and less effective EFL learners' preference degree regarding item 14

Table 10 .
Chi-square test of the more effective and less effective EFL learners' preferences degree regarding item21

Table 11 .
Frequency and percentage of more effective and less effective EFL learners' preference degree regarding item 28

Table 12 .
Chi-square test of the more effective and less effective EFL learners' preferences degree regarding item28 The difference between more effective and less effective efl learners' preference degree regarding item 29

Table 9 .
Frequency and percentage of more effective and less effective EFL learners' preference degree regarding item 21

Table 8 .
Chi-square test of the more effective and less effective EFL learners' preferences degree regarding item14

Table 13 .
Frequency and percentage of more effective and less effective EFL learners' preference degree regarding item 29

Table 14 .
Chi-square test of the more effective and less effective EFL learners' preferences degree regarding item29