The interrelationship of the scales of the Motivational strategies questionnaire and the Learning experience scale

129 younger teacher is a better motivator needs caution and will need closer analysis at a later stage of motivational strategy research. Yet another explanation is the potential mediating effect of self-regulation on motivational strategies and indirectly on motivation. In my observation, Boglárka‟s whole personality transmitted to the students how important the English language is and how much the students can do to reach their aims. This is in line with the concept of self-regulation, in that it is the students who are responsible for their own learning, and that being motivated partly depends on the students themselves – more on this can be found in Section 6.3. In addition, the above-mentioned small difference between the teachers could reflect the fact that the motivational strategies do not play as exclusive a role in motivating students as was suggested by earlier research (e.g., Guilloteaux & Dörnyei, 2008), or that this role is not of the nature we originally thought (see Sections 4.6 and 6.6).

4.5 The interrelationship of the scales of the Motivational strategies questionnaire

130 Table 4.6 Correlations between the scales of the Motivational strategies

questionnaire and the Learning experience scale (N=101)

Motivational strategies

questionnaire Learning experience scale

CBMC GIM MPM EPRS INI CON SELF MOT

Motivational strategies questionnaire

CBMC –

GIM .74** –

MPM .60** .82** –

EPRS .60** .71** .70** –

Learning experience scale

INI .36** .46** .42** .30** –

CON .31** .51** .49** .30** .52** –

SELF .25* .39** .36** .28** .36** .43** –

MOT .64** .75** .68** .58** .59** .57** .46** –

* = p<.05; ** = p<.01; CBMC=creating the basic motivational conditions; GIM=generating initial motivation; MPM=maintaining and protecting motivation; EPRS=encouraging positive retrospective self-evaluation; INI=initiative; CON=control; SELF=self-efficacy; MOT=motivation

It can be seen from the table that the scales of the Motivational strategies questionnaire are more closely related than the scales of the Learning experience scale.

The tests comparing the strengths of the correlations showed seven significantly different relations in the case of the Motivational strategies questionnaire, while there were only two such relations in the case of the Learning experience scale. The highest correlations are between the second and the third phases of the motivational teaching practice, but the first and the second phases, the second and the fourth phases, and the third and the fourth phases are also closely related (.82; .74; .71; .70 respectively, and according to the Fisher r-to-z transformation there is a significant difference between .82 and .70, z=2.03, p=0.02). While there is a close interrelationship between these scales, those of the Learning experience scale are less directly related, with .59 being the highest score between initiative and motivation, and there is no significant difference between this correlation and the lowest correlation between the scales of the Motivational strategies questionnaire. This means that the scales of the Learning experience scale tapped into less directly related issues than those of the Motivational strategies questionnaire. This is not surprising, considering the fact that the phases of the motivational teaching practice are closely related to the stages of the same concept

131 that can run in parallel or can dynamically interrelate, as opposed to the scales measuring self-regulation, which measure different domains but not phases of the same concept.

Cross-examination of these scales indicates that motivation (of self-regulation) shows a high correlation with all four phases of the motivational teaching practice, and especially the first three stages. This suggests that the relationship between the motivation part of self-directedness and the teachers‟ motivational teaching practice is strong. The other three scales of the Learning experience scale, namely, initiative, control and self-efficacy, do not show such a high correlation with the different phases of the motivational teaching practice. As for the strengths of the correlations (Fisher r-to-z transformation) between the scales of the motivational teaching practice and the Learning experience scale, most of these relationships are not significantly different from each other, according to the tests. This difference in the strength of the correlations is indicative of the fact that the motivational teaching practice is teacher-focussed and teacher-initiated, and the Learning experience scales are focussed and student-initiated.

Some of the correlations are interesting to consider. The correlation between initiative and the first phase of the motivational teaching practice is not too high (.36), suggesting that even though the teacher was able to create the basic motivational conditions, the students‟ initiative to make use of the available sources did not foster it, and thus the teacher‟s and the students‟ expectations could not be reconciled. The correlations between the motivational teaching practice and initiative are low in general, suggesting that the students were not able to capitalise on their teacher‟s effort to motivate them. On the other hand, the students‟ motivation to take part in lessons and enjoy the activities strongly correlates with all the stages of the motivational teaching

132 practice, implying that although they were not able to initiate activities, they were satisfied with the ones they were presented with. The low scores in initiative and the general satisfaction expressed in the interviews also support this explanation.

The scale self-efficacy shows low correlations with all the four phases of the motivational teaching practice, indicating that the students‟ average belief in their capacity to produce effects was not associated strongly with the teacher‟s effort. In other words, the teachers and their motivational teaching practice could not promote sufficient enough self-efficacy in the students for them to achieve more, and to be more successful in language learning. The scale control shows a similar pattern, in that it is not closely related to any of the phases of the motivational teaching practice, implying that there was little connection between the motivational repertoire of the teachers and the students‟ organising abilities to become more motivated.

Considering the correlations from the point of view of the motivational teaching practice, Table 4.6 shows that the second and the third phases have the strongest correlations with the different domains of self-regulation. This is surprising to a degree, since it was explained above (Section 4.3) that the teachers seem to be at their best during the first half of the cycle. This result suggests an association between the students‟ self-regulation and the teachers‟ motivational teaching practice as perceived by the students, however, this link is not too strong and affects mainly the middle stages of the teaching practice. The motivational teaching practice shows really strong correlations only with motivation, indicating that the real impact of motivational strategies might lie in influencing this aspect of the students‟ self-regulation. This leads to an alternative explanation of why Boglárka‟s students performed better in all the domains (scales) of the three questionnaires where a significant difference was found.

Since Boglárka emphasises a very strong, autonomy-based approach to language

133 learning, strengthening all of the four aspects of self-regulation too, her students‟ better performance might be indicative of the fact that in general the phases of the motivational teaching practice are most closely related to the motivation part of self-regulation, and therefore those teachers who are more successful at motivating their students are those teachers who are also able to affect other aspects of their students self-regulation.

To summarise, there is a clear association between the scales of the Motivational strategies questionnaire and the Learning experience scale respectively, and also between the scales of the two questionnaires. These correlations are significant at the .01 level (except for the correlation between the first phase of the motivational teaching practice and self-efficacy, where p<.05). This means that the teachers‟ motivational strategies are related to the students‟ self-regulation. Although the effect of the motivational strategies cannot be measured with the help of correlations, it can be supposed that the teacher has an impact on the students since it is the teacher who holds the classes. On the other hand, it might be a useful issue to investigate the effect the students‟ self-regulation has on the teacher‟s motivational teaching practice.