EFL students’ motivation and its relatedness with their academic performance

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify factors that motivate EFL teachers to acquire knowledge, as well as the connection between these motives and academic performance. Prospective first-year EFL teachers studying after school and college took part in this experiment. Each participant filled out a questionnaire in Google Forms where they ranked motives for learning activities in order of importance. Then the results were analyzed with an independent t-test analysis. At the end of the semester, students passed an exam in the course “Introduction to Linguistics” and based on the exam results, it was determined whether there was a relatedness between motives and students’ academic performance. The results showed that student motivation is related to students’ academic performance. It was found that the highest motive among post-secondary students is the motive “everyone is studying, and so am I” (8.32), second place is “I don’t want to let the group down” (8.15), third place is “this is what my parents wanted” (7.97). In technical and vocational education groups the leading place is occupied by the motive “avoiding complaints” (8.17), the next motive is “everyone is learning and so am I” (7.77), “I don’t want to let the group down” (7.62).