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their tasks and one tool for the lecturer to assess the
students’ learning achievement.
In psychological perspective, motivation is
described as “a state that energizes, directs and
sustains behavior” (Acheampong, 2017). It is a term
that is used to refer to factors that activate, direct, and
sustain goal-directed behavior (Alkazemi, 2017), and
is believed as ‘always be at the heart of teaching and
learning (Kormos and Csizér, 2008). Motivation is
the main reason that inspires a person to move
forward (Kormos and Csizér, 2008). It is described
(Kormos and Csizér, 2008; Lo and Hyland, 2007;
Ryan, 2000; Ryan and Deci, 2000) that one’s
motivation might be stimulated or inspired by others
or events (extrinsic motivation) or it may come from
within the individual (intrinsic motivation).
Motivation may be affected by one’s self
determination, the ability to make choices and
exercise a high degree of control. It is described
(Ryan, 2000) that self-determination can be supported
by providing students with opportunities to be
challenged and then increasing students' interest,
competence, creativity and desire to be challenged
and increase students’ engagement in their study.
In education, student engagement refers ‘to the
degree of attention, curiosity, interest, optimism, and
passion that students show when they are learning or
being taught, which extends to the level of motivation
they have to learn and progress in their education’ [4].
Several research have proved that motivation is
essential in learning process and affect students’
engagement in the class activity (Oxford and Shearin,
1994; Ryan, 2000). Alkazemi (2017) has done a
research to observe students’ perspective toward
journalism and career as a journalist, and find that
jounalism is not popular to the students and beeing a
jurnalist is not the main choise of career. A contrast
result is shown by Acheampong (2017) who did a
survey on the motivation of Kuwaiti students who
intend to major in mass communication. They have
faced a long process that begins in high school. The
finding depicts that all respondents viewed the field
of journalism positively and journalism education in
a positive light. The two research show that students
from different places and different exposure to
journalism may differ in viewing journalism or
journalism education.
A study by Jodai and Zafarghandi (2013)
investigates the effect of motivational factors on
English achievement in an intensive English course
attended by 164 Iranian male military staff (aged
from 20 to 30). The study which adopts a
contextualized version of the mini-Attitude
Motivation Test Battery (α=.70) uses four principal
variables, which are motivation, integrativeness,
organizational influence, and anxiety. The finding
shows that ‘integrativeness predicted the motivation
to learn English positively, and that motivation was a
positive predictor of English achievement’.
Blog has been considered as one of a great
educational tools in classroom teaching and is
considered as an ‘online journal’ that an individual
can continuously update with his or her own words,
ideas, and thoughts through software that enables one
to easily do so (Cambell, 2003). It gives students
complete freedom to publish content on the web. A
study by has proved that students viewed Weblog as
‘giving an opportunity and freedom for self-
expression in English and writing for both a local and
global audience’, It also can foster creative, analytical
and critical thinking skills, creates social interaction
and good relationships between writer and reader, and
supports the learning community (Cambell, 2003).
2 METHODS
2.1 Research Design
The participant of the research is 85 students of
English Department who take ‘Introduction to
Journalism’ course. They are enrolled in the 3
rd
semester of the 2016/2017 academic year.
- Every student is assigned to make a web blog
and post the class assignments and teaching
materials on the blog.
- The students are assigned to write at least 3 news
in different forms (photo news, feature story,
and broadcasting news). There is no restriction
as to the topic of the news to allow the students
choose topic of their interest. All the
assignments have to be posted on their blog.
- Besides posting their works on journalism, the
students are also assigned to post the teaching
materials obtained from the internet.
2.2 Assessment
The Marking System follows the system used by the
University. One’s achievement is valued using
number system, ranging from 0 to 100. The numbers
are then transformed into a letter system, ranging
from A to E. The value of each letter is based on 5
points scale basis. Thus, the highest grade is A, which
has a value ≥ 86 and the lowest is E (failed), which is
≤ 45,
Students’ engagement in the class activities is
assessed from 1). Number of Posting/Writing, 2).
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