Investigating the effects of future time perspective and percieved instrumentality of vocational high school students on their graded performance and attitudes towards english

The aim of this research is to examine the effects of future time perspective and percieved instrumentality of vocational high school students on their graded performance and attitudes towards a specific course: English. One thousand sixty-one students from different vocational high schools in Bolu participated in the study. The data about students? future time perspective was obtained through the Future Time Perspective Scale, adapted by Eren (2007) on the basis of Husman and Shell?s (2008) Future Time Perspective Scale and the data about students? percieved instrumentality was obtained through the Percieved Instrumentality Scale, developed by Miller and his colleagues (2000). The students? attitudes regarding English class was assessed through the Attitude Scale Towards English, originally developed by Altunay (2004). The students? graded performance regarding English class was required from the deputies of their schools at the end of the academic semester.Crucial findings were obtained regarding the effects of future time perspective and percieved instrumentality of the students on their graded performance and attitudes towards English class. Accordingly, the results of the study demonstrated that the students? future time perspective has significantly affected their graded performance but not affected their attitudes towards English in the same manner. The students? percieved instrumentality considerably affected both their graded performance and their attitudes. Furthermore, the relationships among class level and graded performance, and attitude towards English were also significant. Implications for education and directions for future studies were also discussed at the end of the study.