Too Costly or Less Valuable? Adolescent Students' Reasons Inducing Their Avoidance Motivation in English Learning

• In Event: Student Motivation Across Mathematics and Language Learning Domains

Abstract

We investigated whether cost perceptions can effectively explain adolescent students’ spontaneous statements of the reasons underlying their avoidance motivation in English learning. Fourteen hundred Chinese middle school students responded to an open-ended question that asked them to write down the three most important reasons that would induce their avoidance behaviors in English learning. The results reveal that perceived costs account for 78.91% of the total responses, which verified the applicability of cost perceptions in explaining students’ avoidance motivation. Among all the four cost facets, effort cost was mentioned most frequently, representing 70.36% of students’ self-reported avoidance motivation. We further examined the constitutes of effort cost by differentiating six English language components, among which vocabulary-related effort cost was mentioned most.

Authors

• Shuyu Chen, East China Normal University
  Presenting Author

• Yi Jiang, East China Normal University
  Presenting Author