How Determined Are They?: Measuring English Learning Motivation of Korean Secondary School Students

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the motivational factors of Korean middle and high school students in learning English. Additionally, the current study examined whether there were any differences between high school students and middle school students in therms of the motivational subtypes. 172 middle and high school students participated in this study. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to address the research questions. For analysis, data was collected through a questionnaire adopted from the Language Learning Orientation Scale (LLOS) of Noels et al. (2003). The results indicated that the hypothesized model, which includes seven motivational sub-types of self-determination theory, was acceptable to measure Korean secondary students’ motivational factors, showing good fits in most fit indices. The seven dimensions of motivation that the current study explored were amotivation, external regulation, introjected regulation, identified regulation, intrinsic motivation-accomplishment, intrinsic motivationknowledge, and intrinsic motivation-stimulus. Also, the study found that the difference between the middle school group and the high school group was not significant in terms of their motivational orientation. A meaningful implication of this study was the scale’s possible use by secondary English teachers.