An investigation of motivational self system of students learning English as a foreign language at a university context

The primary objective of this study is to understand and analyse the English language motivation of a sample of Turkish undergraduate students through the lens of L2 Motivational Self System. In this study, Taguchi et al.'s (2009) Motivational Self System scale was used to collect data. The scale was composed of two parts. The first part was the background information about the knowledge of the participants. They were primarily necessitated to supply their bio-data, such as gender, major, age at which they began to study English. The second involved a questionnaire. The current research was carried out at the Preparatory School of Hasan Kalyoncu University in the spring semester of the 2015-2016 academic years. The quantitative data was collected from 125 learners for the questionnaire, originating in 81 males and 44 females. The data was exposed to descriptive analyses. Moreover, independent samples t-test was used to see the differences in the responses of the respondents with respect to their gender, and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to examine the differences in motivational factors in relation to the sub-groups of the sample based on the variables of L2 motivational self system. The major results include the following: First, the students formed an L2 component in their L2 self as responsible for their efforts to master an L2. With the answers to the statements it is evident that the students consider themselves as successful L2 learners in the future. Second, the results of quantitative data ascertained a powerful existence of L2 motivational factors relevant to ought-to L2 selves of the participants. Third, students' overall attitudes towards learning English are positive. Fourth, female learners were more positive towards learning English than male learners. Moreover, according to the t-test result, both Ideal L2 Self and Attitudes towards learning English have highly significant impact. Fifth, the findings revealed that learners who have learned foreign language(s) aside from English enhanced their ideal L2 self which had the strongest effect on learning English. The t-test represents that there was no statistically significant difference. Sixth, living abroad for more than six months experience influenced participants' motivational selves. The result of independent samples t-test regarding the learners who had lived abroad and those who had not was significant and meaningful in terms of Ought-to L2 Self. Finally, even though the result of one-way ANOVA regarding age showed that learners' age had no significantly important difference with their L2 Motivational Self, based on the averages of mean scores, it is evident that motivation decreased with age.