Students’ Motivations and Attitudes towards Foreign Language
Learning
Eva Meidi Kulsum
1,2
, Hamdan Sugilar
1
, Nanang Kosim
1
and Koko A. Kodir
1
1
UIN Sunan Gunung Djati Bandung, Bandung, Indonesia
2
Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Bandung, Indonesia
Keywords: Individual differences, affective variables, motivation, attitude.
Abstract: It is a common phenomenon that students (language learners) who learn in the same time with the same book
and of course are taught by the same teacher reach the very different levels of success in learning, this case is
called as individual differences. There are three factors or variables contribute to individual differences:
cognitive, affective, and personality variables. This study reported the affective variables that contribute to
individual differences of students at university level. It investigated students’ motivations and attitudes
towards foreign language learning. This study employed a qualitative descriptive method by taking the
questionnaire. The data found were calculated manually by calculating the percentages and mean scores of
the student responses to infer the data findings. The first finding showed that the mean scores of integrative
were 3.1 were 3.1 or (77.5% students) and instrumental 3.5 (87.5% students) which meant most of the students
learning English attached to their language learning outcomes and future achievements than integrative
purposes. The second finding found that there are only 17.5 % students have bad attitudes and 82.5% students
have good attitudes (for all sub-scales of attitudes). Additionally, students had better motivation than attitudes
towards foreign language learning showed by the mean scores of motivation revealed 3.5 (87.5% students)
and students’ attitudes 3.3 (82.5% students).
1 INTRODUCTION
Teaching and learning are two faces of a coin, they
both are inseparable. Teaching can lead to success in
learning and vice versa. It does not only refer to
learning that takes place before teaching but also to
the on-going learning process experienced by both
student and teacher that takes place every day.
People believe that teacher is clearly a major
factor of student achievement in learning. And it is
also believed that there are so many internal factors
of the students themselves influenced to their success
in learning. It is not easy to determine the factors that
contribute to success. People cannot merely say that
it is caused by the teacher who has successfully done
his or her roles as a teacher. Perhaps, it is true but it
does not the only one factor or variable. For example:
teacher A has done her duty as a teacher, she can
manage her role as a teacher, has various good
methods in teaching and knows most of their students
learning styles and strategies. In addition, she knows
what to do and what to teach to her students. It must
lead the students to success. In the fact, there are some
students who are not success in learning.
It is a common phenomenon that students
(language learners) who learn in the same time with
the same book and of course are taught by the same
teacher reach the very different levels of success in
learning. Some of them successfully engage the
learning process with a good progress and
achievement but some of them do not. These
individual differences according to Dornyei (2005)
are “enduring personal characteristics that are
assumed to apply to everybody and on which people
differ by degree”. They may be caused by the
environmental advantage like student who had a
chance to get more practices because fortunately she
or he had a friend who is native speaker of the
language she or he learned to manage a bit
conversation. In other words, this student worked
outside the class more than others. Besides, it also
may be caused by themselves, let us say this is as the
internal factors.
Kulsum, E., Sugilar, H., Kosim, N. and Kodir, K.
Students’ Motivations and Attitudes towards Foreign Language Learning.
In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Sociology Education (ICSE 2017) - Volume 1, pages 463-468
ISBN: 978-989-758-316-2
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
463

According to Johnson (2001:117) usually there
are three factors or variables that contribute to
individual differences. They are cognitive which
refers to intelligence and aptitude, affective which is
related to feeling such as motivation and attitudes,
and personality concerns extrovert and introvert.
Those individual differences make the researcher
interested in conducting this research supporting by
phenomenon that often found, perhaps always, in
teaching and learning process. To narrow the study,
the researcher makes the limitation that is by only
analyzing the affective variables concerning
motivation and attitude proposed by Johnson (2001).
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
According to Johnson (2001:117) usually there are
three factors or we can say this is as variables that
contribute to individual differences. They are
cognitive, affective, and personality. On the other
hand, Zafar and Meenakshi (2012:639) introduced
seven variables that teachers should be aware of these
individual differences effects, they are: age, sex,
attitude, motivation, learning styles, learning
strategies, and personality. Other arguments about
variables contribute to individual differences are Liao
(1996:1), he states: intelligence, aptitude, and
language learning strategies. Lujan-Ortega (2000)
proposes: age, aptitude/intelligence, motivation,
learning/cognitive style, and personality. Skehan
(2002) argues: language aptitude, learning style,
motivation, and learning strategies. Bond (2002)
emphasizes: age, exposure to foreign language in
infancy, immersion, intelligence, personality, attitude
and motivation, relationship between first and target
language, sensory style, learning strategies, and other
factors (mimicry, musical ability). (Cited in Eddy,
2011)
This research will only discuss one of the
variables introduced by Johnson that is affective
variable which is related to feeling concerning
motivation and attitudes.
2.1 Motivation
It is believed that people do things is derived by some
motives; it is impossible if there is nothing influenced
them to do. For example: people eat because they feel
hungry, people drink because they feel thirsty, and
also people learn foreign language because there are
some reasons. Reece and Walker (1997) cited in Nuri
(2001) expressed that motivation is the key factor in
the language learning process. Motivation depends on
the social interaction between the teacher and the
learner; to be able to create an effective learning
environment having highly motivated students. Take
a look these motivations of people learn FL taken
from Johnson (2001):
a. Bryn the Welshman is learning Welsh because he
feels the need to speak the language of his roots,
to understand his own culture, to help strengthen
the distinctiveness of Welsh society.
b. Zhang from China. He is learning English so that
he can study abroad. The key to his ambition is a
good score on an English test.
These two examples illustrate some of many great
variety reasons why people learn FL. Those two
motivations are classified by Johnson as integrative
and instrumental motivation. Integrative motivation
is the motivation that comes from the learner with
desire to learn more about culture, its language, and
people. While instrumental motivation involves
learning in order to achieve some other goals such as
to get a good job and go abroad.
Some studies found that integrative motivation is
more successful than instrumental but the others
found that instrumental also leads to success in
learning FL. Supported by those different arguments
and found that the motives of pupil are often complex
and difficult to categorize led Burstall (1974) cited in
Johnson to investigate there was any real advantage
to an early start in FL learning. His finding relates to
the gender differences, he found consistently more
integrative motivation in girls. Since girls appear
more confident of parental support for learning
language. In this case, parental support is important
for learners. If the parents want the children (as
learners) to do well at learning FL, this will help the
process a good deal. (Johnson, 2001)
Different from Johnson, Ryan and Deci (2000)
citied in Griffiths (2008:21) identified motivation into
intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. They assumed that
“intrinsically motivated learners are deeply
concerned to learn things well” compared to
extrinsically motivated learners “such learners are
likely to display much higher levels of involvement in
learning, engage in more efficient and creative
thinking process, use a wider range of a problem
solving strategies” (Condry and Chambers, 1978
cited in Griffiths, 2008:22). In line with that, Harmer
(2007b: 20) supported that motivation divided into
intrinsic which is known as “motivation that is
generated by what happens inside the classroom”,
such as the teacher’s method in teaching language
learning. On the contrary, Extrinsic motivation is a
kind of motivations that ”students bring into the
ICSE 2017 - 2nd International Conference on Sociology Education
464

classroom from outside”, it can be what they called as
achievement they want to get after having the class;
getting a good job, going abroad, having a good life
style and so forth. Whatever the terms and
classifications are; without motivation success will be
hard to come by.
The motivation that affected and influenced
students to learn language is came up from different
sources, Harmer (2007a: 52) identified this into
attitude of a number of people, those are:
a. The society they live in: this attitude of society is
really influenced to the student motivation in
learning language, how important is the language
that they learn to the society around them? For
example, English can determine the social status
of individual; they will hardly try to learn English
in order they are considered as the high level in
society they live in.
b. Significant others: besides society, people who
are close to them are also having a big influence
to the motivation and progress of student language
learning. Because those people are recognized as
the first people whom they believe. For example,
parents. As previously mention that the parental
support is really important for students. If the
parents want the children (as students) to do well
at learning FL, this will help the process a good
deal
c. The teacher: teacher is clearly a major factor of
student achievement in learning, the teacher role
really affected to the student motivation. If the
teacher can provide the positive classroom
atmosphere that makes them enjoy and easier to
understand the subject, it will impact to the
success that both teacher and students expected.
d. The method: it is vital to both teacher and students
as the components of classroom which will lead
to success in learning. When both are confidence
and comfortable with the method being used,
success is easier to come by.
2.2 Attitude
Attitude towards the native speakers of the foreign
language people wish to learn might be very
important for the advanced level of learner not for the
lower level. At the advanced stage, getting inside the
culture is expected; such as being able to speak in a
good foreign accent. This ability is not required to the
lower level.
There are three types of attitude in relation to
language learning introduced by Johnson (2001): the
first is attitude towards success, this type of attitude
relates to student strives for achieving their goals in
life or in learning English, it can be seen through their
attitudes towards learning English. The second is
attitude towards teacher, this is a common believe that
if people do not like the teacher of the subject they
learn they are just wasting their time trying to learn
that subject. The last is attitude towards your own
country, perhaps what people think of their own
country, and not just the country of the target-
language speaker, will influence how well they
success in the FL; it is also related to how students
regard the people and its language.
In addition, Gardner cited in Liuoliene and
Metiuniene (2006) stated that the learner’s attitudes
towards the learning situation are assumed as the
component goal of motivation. He also explained
that,
“In the context of a language classroom the
learning situation could include variables such as
the teacher, the textbook, classroom activities,
classmates and so forth. The learner’s attitudes
toward these variables will influence the learner’s
core motivation as well as the learner’s
orientation. Positive attitudes toward the learning
situation will likely produce greater enjoyment in
the study of the language, desire to learn the
language, and effort expended in learning the
language.”
If so, attitude can be defined as predictor of
success in learning foreign language. Ellis (1994:197-
201) supported that learners’ attitudes have been
identified as one set of variables of major importance.
There are both negative and positive attitudes towards
foreign language they learnt. The positive attitudes
are typically connected to the speakers of the
language and culture represented by its speakers.
Such positive attitudes can be expressed by students’
desire to be able to communicate with native speaker
of the language they are learning. In other words, if
students are interested in the countries where the
language are spoken, they may be more motivated to
learn the language (Noels et.al. 2003:36). On the
other hand, negative attitude can be an obstacle in
language learning. When the students are not
interested whether in the subject or the teacher, it may
cause a negative effect on students.
3 METHOD
This research method employed qualitative
descriptive study and considered as a case study.
English Dormitory of State University in Bandung
was chosen as the research site. The dormitory was
designed to provide students at the first year of study
Students’ Motivations and Attitudes towards Foreign Language Learning
465

1
2
3
4
3,1
3,5
Mean Score
Integrative
Instrumental
to learn English as foreign language. 27 students were
selected as a subject of this study using purposive
sampling technique. This research used questionnaire
as the instrument and material to analyze students’
motivations and attitudes. There were 30 statements
to be answered by respondents which could be
assumed as a tool to see students’ motivations and
attitudes towards English, its people, its learning, and
its teacher. The 30 items were designed in the form of
statement which were divided into 4 sub-scales, each
sub-scales consisted of 5 statements each data from
questionnaire was counted, displayed, and analyzed.
The student’s responses (n=27) to the survey items
(n=30) were scored by the given values: 1= strongly
disagree, 2= disagree, 3=agree, 4=strongly disagree.
The data calculated manually by calculating the
percentages and mean scores of the student responses
to infer the data findings. At last, the analysis of each
data collection was synthesized and discussed to
answer the research questions.
4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The overall analysis for the 30 items portrayed in
figure 1 below. It highlighted means score of
students’ motivations 3.5 (87.5% students) and
students’ attitudes 3.3 (82.5% students) which
showed that students had better motivation than
attitudes towards English learning:
Figure 1: Students’ motivations and attitudes.
4.1 Students’ Motivations
The students were given questionnaire which could
reflect their motivations in learning English. 5
statements reflected their integrative motivations and
5 statements reflected their instrumental motivations.
The result of this research showed that students were
more motivated towards instrumental than integrative
as they hoped in achieving instrumental rewards in
the form of grades, achievements, performance,
future life, and good job.
The mean scores of integrative were 3.1 or
(77.5% students) and instrumental 3.5 (87.5%
students) which meant most of the students learning
English attached to their language learning out comes
and future achievements than integrative purposes,
see figure 2.
Figure 2: Students’ integrative and instrumental motivation.
Henceforth, the item analysis for instrumental
motivation indicated that 95% students felt that
English could help them because they needed it for
their future career (item 26), and 92,5% students
regarded that studying English could help them to get
high scores in TOEFL, TOEIC, or IELTS in order to
study in an English speaking country and made them
a better educated person (item 28, 29 and 30).
Different from instrumental, less than 80% students
(77.5%) believed that English could help them to
have more friends and participate in activities of other
cultures. More than 80% students appreciated that
English was useful for contemporary social
communication and by learning the language, it could
help them to talk more with English speaking people
(item 21 and 22), see figure 3.
Figure 3: Sub-scales of motivations.
1
2
3
4
3,5
3,3
Mean Scores
Motivation
Attitude
3,5 3,3
3,1 3,1
3,4 3,8 3,6 3,7 3,7 3,7
1
2
3
4
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Mean Scores
Items
ICSE 2017 - 2nd International Conference on Sociology Education
466

In addition, more than 85% students were
instrumentally motivated and less than 85% students
were integratively motivated.
4.2 Students’ Attitudes
Learners’ attitudes have been identified as one set of
variables of major importance in learning language
(Ellis: 1994). There are 20 items which could be
assumed as a tool to see their attitudes towards
English, its people, its learning, and its teacher. Each
sub-scales consisted of 5 statements. The data
analysis showed that their attitudes towards English
were placed in the high positions which had mean
score 3.7 or about 93% of students had good attitudes,
while the rest (7%) had bad attitudes. It is followed
by attitudes towards English learning which indicated
that 85% students had good attitude towards its
learning. While ≤ 80% students had good attitudes
towards its teacher and people. In total, there are only
17.5 % students have bad attitudes and 82.5%
students have good attitudes (for all sub-scales of
attitudes).
Table 1: Percentage of sub-scales of students’ attitude.
Table 2: All sub-scale of students’ attitudes.
Furthermore, the item analysis of sub-scales of
attitudes towards English, its people, its learning, and
its teacher indicated that majority of students (97%
and M=3.9) assumed that English was an
international language (item1), 95% students
(M=3.8) hoped that they could speak English fluently
(item 4), and ≤ 92.5 % students wished that they could
read English book because English was most widely
used language and helped them in understanding
people from other countries (item 2,3, and 5). In total,
only 7% of the students who had bad attitude towards
English as a foreign language. The data analysis of
other attitudes belonged to students those were
attitudes towards its people, its learning and its
teacher showed that ≤ 75% students (M≤3) in item 6,
7,8,15, and 19 assumed that learning English was
more useful than any other foreign languages which
the teacher was also their favorite teacher among all
teachers and respected English native speakers whom
were not only friendly and sociable but also needed
in their country. 90% students (M=3.6) gave positive
view about learning English as a great program which
was required by school, even they planned to learn
English as much as possible so that 85% students
(M=3.4) intended to learned English even it was not
a part of the school program (item 14). In line with
learning process, ≤ 80% students (M≤3.2) thought
their English teacher knew how to speak fluently and
helped them to learn how to speak good English so
that they liked the way their teacher taught them (item
17,18, and 20). 82.5% students (M=3.3) had an
intention to learn much about English native speakers
because they learned good things from the native and
they also saw their teacher who helped them in
learning English was an excellence English teacher
(item 9,10, and 16). Those explanations are tabulated
and figured below:
Figure 4: Sub-scales of motivations.
5 CONCLUSIONS
Students were more motivated towards instrumental
than integrative as they hoped in achieving
instrumental rewards in the form of grades,
achievements, performance, future life, and good job.
The mean scores of integrative were 3.1 or (77.5%
students) and instrumental 3.5 (87.5% students)
which meant most of the students learning English
attached to their language learning out comes and
future achievements than integrative purposes.
The data analysis showed that their attitudes
towards English were placed in the high positions
which had mean score 3.7 or about 93% of students
had good attitudes, while the rest (7%) had bad
attitudes. It is followed by attitudes towards English
learning which indicated that 85% students had good
attitude towards its learning. While ≤ 80% students
had good attitudes towards its teacher and people. In
total, there are only 17.5 % students have bad
attitudes and 82.5% students have good attitudes (for
all sub-scales of attitudes).
The findings of this research suggest the
important role of teachers as a major factor of student
achievement in learning in order to build students’
motivations and attitudes towards English, since they
No Sub-Scale Mean Percenta
g
e
1 AL 3.7 93%
2 AP 3.1 78%
3 AEL 3.4 85%
4 AT 3.2 80%
No Response Mean Percentage
1 Positive 3.3 82.5%
2 Negative 0.7 17.5%
Students’ Motivations and Attitudes towards Foreign Language Learning
467

are considered as predictors of success in learning
foreign language.
Further research should look into another
important variables that contribute to individual
differences such as cognitive variables and
personality. In order to give more comprehension to
the investigation of individual differences that often
experienced, perhaps always, by the learners.
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