Language learning among higher education students: an analysis on motivation

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DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7203/realia.32.27546

Keywords:

motivation, survey, language learning, second language, university education

Abstract

Intrinsic motivation in language learning is ideal to attain successful foreign language learning according to experts (Del Castillo, 2010; Gilakjani et al.,2010). In order to measure its impact at university level, this paper shows the results of a quantitative study conducted at KU Leuven during the academic year 2021-2022 on motivation in foreign language learning. A total of 479 students participated in a survey designed for this purpose. The methodology was based on a multivariate analysis using the statistical package SPSS v. 25. The research findings show that university students have essentially instrumental motivation for learning foreign languages (FL), which implies that their desire to acquire a second language (L2) is limited to practical purposes. On the other hand, the study has identified a representative segment of students, referred to as “incidental students”, who are characterised by not having any clear motivation (neither instrumental nor integrative) for FL. The results lead to recommendations for curricular adaptation to enhance intrinsic motivation in foreign language teaching and learning at university level.

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Author Biographies

María Luisa Rodríguez Muñoz, Universidad de Córdoba

Her research career is strongly conditioned by her academic training in translation and interpreting and her professional experience in interculturality and sworn translation. After completing her undergraduate studies in Translation and Interpreting in Granada, she continued her training with a postgraduate degree in Immigration Law and a Master’s degree in Research in Specialised Translation and Interpreting at the University of Malaga. She obtained her PhD at the University of Córdoba in 2014 with the dissertation Interamericana: la traducción al inglés de Pantaleón y las visitadoras . She began her teaching work in 2008 as a PSI lecturer at the Pablo de Olavide University and, later, in 2009, She continued it at the University of Cordoba where she currently works as a PAD (accredited to PCD by DEVA). Since then, she has attended and participated as a speaker in numerous academic courses and conferences on her main research lines: Inter-American literature, intercultural translation, translation and gender and didactics of sworn translation. She published several papers on translation analysis and literature and reviews in scientific journals, some of them indexed in WoS, Scopus and SJR, notably Asparkía , Lebende Sprachen , Hikma  and CTTL  and she is the chief editor of scienfic journal Alfinge. Revista de Filología , indexed in MIAR (6.5) and assistant editor of scientific journal Panace@ , indexed in SJR (Q3) and Scopus. She has also published book chapters in Dykinson, Comares, Peter Lang, Narr, McGraw Hill, among others, and 1 monograph in Sindéresis. For further information, see: https://scholar.google.cl/citations?user=rPI6DfoAAAAJ&hl=es&oi=ao

Jesús Claudio Pérez Gálvez, Universidad de Córdoba

Jesús Claudio Pérez Gálvez is an associate professor in the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Córdoba, Spain. He holds a degree in Economics and Business Administration from the University of Cordoba (1992), a postgraduate degree in Economic-Financial Management from the Centre for Financial Studies in Madrid (1996) and a PhD in Economics from the University of Cordoba (2009).   He has written more than 60 articles that have been published in different academic journals related to tourism and he is the author of 2 books. He has been the PI of 2 projects that have been supported by public and private organisations.   His areas of expertise are as follows: advice on the development of instruments for data collection; legal aspects, plagiarism and APA regulations; design of preliminary research projects for validation; design of questionnaires; support for publication requirements; personalised information; academic writing and database management; academic writing styles; database creation; statistical treatment of surveys, reliability and validity; information search tools.   For research topics, projects and publications, see:  https://scholar.google.es/citations?user=lY-2GDAAAAAJ&hl=e    

Kris Buyse, KU Leuven

Kris Buyse is full professor at KU Leuven and teaches Spanish and Foreign Language Teaching at the Leuven Language Institute (ILT) and the Faculty of Arts (Antwerp, Leuven, and Kortrijk). At the ILT he coordinates the research activities and is responsible for Spanish for Specific Purposes (Economical and Medical). At the Faculty of Arts he is responsible for the Master of Teaching in Spanish and co-responsible for the Master of Teaching in Languages in general. He also coordinates, along with Isabelle Delaere, the interdisciplinary Centre for Applied Language Research. Outside KU Leuven, Kris is a member of the research groups LAELE (Lingüística Aplicada a la Enseñanza de Lenguas Extranjeras) and REALL (Research in Affective Language Learning) at Universidad Nebrija (Madrid) and Universidad de Huelva, respectively. His publications and lectures are on the output and/of discussion of corpus based research in (or at the crossroads of) the following areas: language didactics and acquisition(particularly vocabulary, writing skills, pronunciation, feedback, motivation and affectivity, assessment), Corpus Linguistics, Lexicography, Contrastive Linguistics, LSP –particulary economic and medical-, CALL, Spanish as a Foreign Language, Heritage Learning and Translation Studies. He was (co)director of more than ten doctoral thesis, as well as several other national and international projects, such as ElektraVoc, UrgentiAS, Aprescrilov, Emilia and MusicLang. He has (co)authored a series of text books resulting from those projects, such as PortaVoces, Basisuitspraak Spaans and Campus Sur, edited by European Publishers. He is reviews editor of ITL-International Journal of Applied Linguistics (Benjamins) and member of the editorial committee of several journals, including the Journal of Spanish Language Teaching (Taylor & Francis) and the recently created TEISEL (Tecnologías para la investigación en segundas lenguas). For research topics, projects and publications,  see  https://www.kuleuven.be/wieiswie/nl/person/00012653

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Published

2024-01-22

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Rodríguez Muñoz, M. L., Pérez Gálvez, J. C., & Buyse, K. (2024). Language learning among higher education students: an analysis on motivation. Research in Education and Learning Innovation Archives, (32), 36–56. https://doi.org/10.7203/realia.32.27546
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