Relationships between motivation and anxiety in adult EFL learners at an Ethiopian university

Merih Welay Welesilassie

20 citations0/0 files storedAmpersand

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning Education, Achievement, and Giftedness Second Language Acquisition and Learning

Abstract

Studies in many educational settings show that motivation and anxiety are related to learning foreign languages (FL). Acknowledging the relevance and multifaceted complexity of motivation and anxiety, the present study aims to examine the relationships in the Ethiopian context where such research has not been conducted. To do so, first, we needed to validate the L2 motivational self-system (L2MSS, Dörnyei, 2009) and a new FL anxiety scale, based on hypothesized relationships between the L2MSS (i.e., the ideal L2 self, ought to L2 self, and L2 learning experience) and FL anxiety (both facilitative and debilitative). A total of 65 university students participated in the research at an Ethiopian university. Questionnaires on L2MSS and facilitative/debilitative anxiety were used to gather data. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlational analyses, and t-tests using SPSS software Version 25. Total scale reliability for the L2MSS and FL anxiety instruments was .90 and .70, respectively, higher than 0.6, suggesting adequate consistency for both constructs. The validity of the construct was evaluated by several model fit indices including the comparative fit index (CFI), Tucker-Lewis’s index (TLI), the goodness of fit index (GFI), and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA). All fit indexes were above .90, except for RMSEA; RMSEA was below .05 revealing that the models were valid. Students rated their L2MSS and FL anxiety moderate. The strongest significant relationship was found between students’ ideal L2 self and their L2 learning experiences, whereas a weak but significant relationship was found between the latter and debilitative anxiety. The paper discusses these outcomes and their implications for classrooms and further research.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 20 citations exist upstream.

References

2000The "What" and "Why" of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the Self-Determination of Behavior 1987Self-discrepancy: A theory relating self and affect.1986Possible selves.2014The two faces of Janus? Anxiety and enjoyment in the foreign language classroom 20094. The L2 Motivational Self System among Japanese, Chinese and Iranian Learners of English: A Comparative Study 200911. A Person-in-Context Relational View of Emergent Motivation, Self and Identity 2010Foreign and second language anxiety 2010The L2 motivational self system, L2 anxiety, and motivated behavior: A structural equation modeling approach

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.