A research on motivation of Iran students in teaching Turkish as a foreign language

This research examines the motivation of Iranian students to learn Turkish as a foreign language in terms of internal, instrumental, and cultural dimensions. To achieve the aim, it was tried to determine whether there is a statistically significant difference between the learners' intrinsic, instrumental and cultural motivations for learning Turkish with their gender, age groups, mother tongue, education level, and Turkish level. The environment of research consists of the students who are educated in or graduated from the Department of Turkish Language and Literature at Tehran Allama Tabatabai University and studying Turkish at Tehran Yunus Emre Institute. The research was conducted with a total of 165 students whose Turkish levels are B1, B2, C1 in the 2020 academic year. The environment of research consists of the students who are educated in the Department of Turkish Language and Literature at Tehran Allama Tabataba'i University and studying Turkish at Tehran Yunus Emre Enstitüsü. In the research, it was conducted on a total of 165 students whose Turkish levels are B1, B2, C1 in the 2020 academic year. "Motivation Scale for Learning Turkish as a Foreign Language" developed by Oğuzhan Sevim (2019) was used as a data collection tool in this study. A quantitative research method was utilized in the study. Data were analyzed by using SPSS program. Non- Parametric tests such as Kruskal Wallis-H test and Mann Whitney-U test were used to analyze the data. The result of the research depicts that the motivations of students from the Department of Turkish language and literature at the University of Tehran Allame Tabataba'i and students studying Turkish at Tehran Yunus Emre Institute for learning Turkish were determined respectively as internally, instrumentally, culturally. Overall the mean scores of the students were high for all the three motivation aspects. Besides, no significant difference was found between the gender, age, and educational status of Turkish learners and their intrinsic, instrumental, and cultural motivations towards Turkish. However, a significant difference was found between students' mother tongue and Turkish levels and their motivation towards Turkish.