This chapter presents the summary of the general findings, followed by the discussion of the results with regard to prior research. Then, the chapter provides implications for pedagogy and future research. The main purpose is to investigate the relationship between intentions and self-regulatory capacity in the motivational process.
Summary of Major Findings
The aim of this study is to determine the intention-regulation chain in second language learning. As reported in Chapter Three and Chapter Four, analysis on Principal Component Analysis and the analysis on reliability substantiate the psychometric quality of the subscales for L2 learning intentions. Scale of Self-Regulatory Capacity in Language Learning (SRClang) also reached significant internal consistency ( α = .93) for the current study. Six predictor variables have been extracted: integrative and instrumental, content, situational, strategic, and interactive orientations. In the study, the subscales correlate with each other substantially (from r
= .14 to .68, p<.01). The correlation coefficients between the subscales and self-regulatory capacity are accounted to be significant (from r = .28 to .82, p<.01).
Next, in the hierarchical multiple regression analysis, the findings have shown that the explanatory power of implementation intentions exceeds that of goal intentions on self-regulatory capacity (Δ R²= .49), especially with three of the four subscales explaining self-regulatory capacity to a significant degree (β =.17 for strategic orientation, p< .001; β =.66 for strategic orientation, p< .001; β =.08 for interactive orientation, p = .03). However, content orientation unexpectedly carries insignificant
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beta weight in explaining the capability of self-regulation ( β = -.023, p=.574).
Discussion
On the basis of the findings, the following discussion will proceed in an attempt to align these findings with previous studies on the similar issues. First, the discussion will address the measures and instrument used in the study and modification is suggested based on the results. Second, the new subscale, interactive orientation, is reported for its consistency with previous studies. Third, the two research questions will be answered based on the results of multiple regression. Finally, the correlated but distinctive intentional constructs will be explored in terms of the interaction effects. The outcome offers positive implications on educational research related to language learning.
The Modification of Scale Items
As reported in the previous chapters, Item 8 for measuring instrumental orientation in the goal intention section holds significant internal consistency but item-total analysis reveals that a higher reliability can be reached if this item could be eliminated. The researcher withheld this item because of its face validity (“My goal in learning English is to achieve an “A” in the class) and the relation with the definition of instrumental orientation (the practical benefits an individual can obtain by achieving language proficiency) for the formal study only to find that its correlation with other items of the same subscale still remained low. Similarly, item 10 (“ If there are words I don’t know, I know how to handle them.”) for measuring strategic orientation in the implementation intention section addressed to the same problem of lower correlation. It was found that these two item had been designed to measure evident purpose of learning (i.e. achieve an “A”) and specific language skill (i.e.
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vocabulary learning) as opposed to general learning conditions the other items from the same subscales depict. An adjustment to the phrasing of the items is considered to be necessary. This observation suggests that in designing related L2 motivational skill, the items such as G8 and I_11 should be modified or refrained from being included.
Another suggested adjustment is associated with content orientation. Content orientation carried a beta weight that was not significantly different from zero (β
=-.023, p=.574), not being identified as a significant predictor of self-regulation, although the correlation between the two remained significant. A possible explanation may lie in the different research methods conducted for Dai and Tseng (2011) and the current study. As discussed in literature review, Dai and Tseng (2011) implemented confirmatory factor analysis to validate the proposed intentional taxonomy while the current research executed Principal Component Analysis to extract possible dimensions based on the intentional scale items. Thus, content orientation in Dai and Tseng (2011) had been predetermined to be a factor before the data analysis. Further scrutiny for the definition and the item formation explained that content orientation was designated to highlight the importance of learning-oriented themes and plans that will improve students’ L2 proficiency levels. As can be seen in the item “If there are more opportunities to meet English foreigners, I will try to think of some topics to speak with them in order to improve my oral skills,” it had been originally meant to measure content orientation but, after the pilot analysis, was revised to be categorized as of interactive orientation during the explanatory factor analysis. The learning plans seem to overlap with situational cues that can be otherwise explained by when, where, and how. In addition, the correlations between content orientation and other subscales in the implementation intention section were significant (from r =.54 to .68) and, if being fastidious, a small effect of cross-loadings can be discovered from the explanatory factor analysis for this dimension. In other words, content orientation is
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not mutually exclusive with other subscales and can be rephrased and combined with other subscales in order to avoid the overlapping effect among constructs and establish a more confident measurement.
The Conceptualization of Interactive Orientation
One of the most prominent discoveries in the study is interactive intention found during the Principal Component Analysis and has been made valid and reliable through further Cronbach’s alpha assessment and the formal survey. The finding enhances the previous study of Dai and Tseng (2011) by providing the unattended factors into literature via explanatory factor analysis. This new subscale in implementation intentions consists of items originally from distinct orientations and has been combined as one dimension based on its relationship with the social-cultural interaction with foreigners. With the importance of situational cues, the innovative construct can be served as a contribution to enhance the L2 research field and to provide insights to L2 pedagogy. Such findings underscore the importance of recognizing the intercultural contact with the target language community.
The construct is compatible with interaction motivation proposed by Cullhane’s inter-class exchange program (Cullhane & Umeda, 2004). Interaction motivation is concerned with learner’s focus on integrating into L2 cultural context during intercultural interactions and with stronger interest in integrative aspects of SLA.
Students who are interactively-motivated are considered more likely to make efforts to establish friendships based on use of the target language and to show less concern of networking with people who are from the target cultural groups. In agreement with Cullhane and Umeda (2004), the newly-termed interactive orientation in the current study can be a crucial factor in forming language learners’ intentions when the encounter of a foreigner is regarded as a stimulus for advanced goal pursuit. More
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specifically, the survey and the investigation reported in this study have demonstrated that interaction with native speakers can serve as a medium to form volitional control in language learning.
The Effects of Intentions on Self-regulatory Capacity
As shown in Table 12, the hierarchical multiple regression results demonstrated that goal orientations and implementation intentions can explain self-regulatory capacity to a significant level, but the significant contributions differs for the two. In Model 1, integrative and instrumental orientations hold significant explanatory power over self-regulatory capacity ( β = .39, β = .21 respectively, p< .001). The results partly corresponded with Dörnyei and Clément (2000), who identified integrative orientation as the most important determinant of students’ effort and investment in the process of language learning. Moreover, the R² value for goal orientation is .227, which means that the regression equation containing just two control variables accounted for about 23% of the variance in self-regulatory capacities, F(2, 386)=
56.648, p< .001.
When the other four variables of implementation intention were added, The R² increased to .712, F (6, 382) = 157.160, p< .001. That is, the percent of variability accounted for self-regulatory capacity went up by almost 49%. In other words, implementation intentions hold more explanatory power than goal intentions alone in terms of the prediction of the dependent variable. The results are in accord with previous studies that goal intention alone has negligible to small effects (Sheeran, 2002) and implementation intention can complement goal intention in its effect of maintaining goal pursuit (Gollwitzer, 1996, 1999). In this thesis, the effects of goal intentions would lessen if implementation intentions were controlled. Implementation intentions can be regarded as a crucial role in the pre-actional phase once goal
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intentions have been set and yield its significance to implementation intentions. That is, the results confirm that implementation intentions complement the role of taking action in what has been targeted.
One of the best predictors is strategic orientation, holding a powerful predictive power ( β = .66) and a significant correlation ( r = .82) with self-regulatory capacity.
On the surface, the results may be satisfactory due to some resemblance among the items, which might explain the strong predictive power and the high correlation. For instance, one item from strategic orientation realized as “If I encounter difficulties when I read English, then I have tactics to solve the problems” and one item from SRC in the structure of “When learning English, I know the tactics to maintain my concentration” bear certain similarities on the lexical level. However, it is of paramount importance to note that these two constructs were considered different to reside preactional and actional phases respectively in the L2 process model of motivation. For strategic orientation, the context of learning (i.e. “if I encounter difficulties”) specified in the if-component reveals the context in which an individual intend to perform the goal-oriented activity (Gollwitzer, 1999) and this situational cue promotes the following goal pursuit. On the contrary, self-regulatory capacity items for the current research were designed to measure individuals’ underlying competence (i.e. “I know the tactics”) to regulate their behaviors when students are involved in English learning. Formally, at the operational level, it can hence be safely argued that the two distinct motivational phases can be appropriately configured.
Generally speaking, implementation intentions demonstrate the stronger predictive power in the whole model. The current results suggest that merely committing L2 learning to a seemingly attainable goal is not sufficient. The results also seem to explain the gap that intention in the TPB has a low predictive power regarding behavior (Sutton, 1998) and show that individuals who formed
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implementation intentions are likely to commit themselves to executing subsequent volitional behavior. The formation of if-then plans seems to translate goal intentions into realistic action.
The Interplay between Goal Intentions and Implementation Intentions
Among the factors influencing self-regulatory capacity, the change of effects for integrative orientation in Model 1 and Model 2 is the most noteworthy. Integrative orientation lost its predictive power when implementation intentions were added to the regression model. This effect can also be attributed to the general interaction between goal intentions and implementation intentions.
Integrative orientation can be realized as the desire to learn the second language in the hope of being able to interact with native speakers and having more opportunities to understand or participate in the cultural activities. On this account, integrative orientation is inherently associated with intercultural communication.
Furthermore, in Hernández’s (2010) study on the motivational development in a study-abroad context, the results of the regression analysis indicated that students with higher integrative orientation interacted more with the L2 culture and integrative orientation was the single significant predictor of interaction ( β = .67). When looking back to the correlation matrix presented in the previous chapter, integrative orientation and interactive orientation correlated significantly ( r =.51). If the results are combined and explained with the theory that goal intentions yield its significance to implementation intentions, the effect of integrative orientation may thus be regarded as being included and affected by interactive orientation, considering their close relationship and the evidence of Hernández (2010). That is, adding interactive orientation to the process takes over the effects of integrative orientation. Once again, the study highlights the significance of furnishing the goals with the contextual cues
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specified in implementation intentions to increase the likelihood of action enactment, which seems to enhance Gardner’s orientations for language proficiency.
Pedagogical Implications
Based on the results, some implications on L2 education can be drawn. Firstly, the goal-setting as the initial stage of intention formation plays a significant role in the motivational process, and the learning goal should be further fortified with the concrete and feasible plans of specific engagement in learning. In this phase, learners involve in motivation maintenance and volitional controls with an precise action plan that helps the actional process, as the results of this study indicated. Hence, learning a second language is not only associated with cognitive or affective factors but also concerned with specified plans. With the strong effect of implementation intentions, teachers may guide learners to set a learning goal which will direct and generate the formation of implementation intentions. Learners make their study plans by specifying the contexts and tactics as situational cues. For example, learners who intend to improve speaking ability in English could specify when and where they would familiarize themselves with daily conversation or presentation skills. The consequence of specifying such learning acts means the anticipated cues have been stored and activated in the mental representation. Once the opportunities of the heightened cues are encountered, learners would respond more swiftly and accurately due to the accessibility stored in the mental representation. Teachers can guide students to select a situational cue that has a high frequency of occurrence and practice. In addition, the immediacy and efficiency in initiating the goal-directed response for achievement should be taken into consideration (Parks-Stamm et al., 2007). Even if learners are hesitant to take actions in the initial learning stage, the association between the specified cues and the intended response will be promoted
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through constant learning attempts and exercises. It is also important for educators to note that clear and precise contexts where learning takes place can influence further action implementation. Teachers are thus advised to make clear of what they wish students to achieve by providing specific examples and contexts instead of a general goal.
Moreover, with the predictive power of interactive orientation on self-regulatory capacity being significant (β =.08), L2 interaction-based context is proven to be a compelling cue for the development of self-regulation and language proficiency.
Educators should make an effort to incorporate activities, such as language exchange programs and video-conferencing with students from other countries (Shih, 2007), into the curriculum that foster students’ integrative and interactive orientations. The activities enable learners to use the target language to explore and reflect the linguistic and cultural differences of L2 (Hernández, 2010). Program director and staff should emphasize the importance of intercultural interaction in general as a key factor in the development of their speaking proficiency and the mastery of L2 as a whole. Social events are organized for participants to meet, to network, and to develop sociolinguistic and pragmatic knowledge of L2 (Hernández, 2010), which students do not have the chance to acquire in intensive form-focused classroom settings. The process is expected to raise learners’ awareness of cultivating self-regulatory capacities in order to integrate their language skills into authentic contexts.
Limitations of the Study
Even though this body of research has the undeniable merit of offering valuable insights into the interplay between L2 intention and self-regulation, its design is not without flaws.
The first shortcoming concerns the time. This current research is essentially a
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cross-sectional study instead of a longitudinal one. In addition, the data collection of questionnaires offers little information on learners’ truest psychological status of the participants. To properly investigate the change of learners’ intentional activities on self-regulatory capacity, it is preferable that a longitudinal study could be implemented in order to explore the developmental transformation of individual learners.
Secondly, the samples of the study were recruited from four different senior high schools located in central Taiwan, with students’ proficiency level ranked as intermediate. Consequently, the generalization of the results to students of different prospects of future plans and backgrounds may be limited.
Finally, a comprehensive investigation of other possible situational cues is limited to time constraint and financial support for the current study. Further interviews and observations for high school students may help with forming a more thorough item pool. The generalization of the current data may be restricted to enhancing Dai and Tseng’s (2011) hypothesized model.
Suggestions for Future Research
The current research is concentrated on the activation of intentions and how intentions persist with volitional control, instead of tracking the motivational process to the postactional phase. As Tseng et al. (2008) suggested, “Self-motivated learning need to be involved with sufficient self-regulating capacity to support themselves in controlling and managing their learning behaviors.” Although it is not within the scope of this research to provide an extended discussion of the ongoing process of motivation, future research might usefully broaden the present use of the measurement scale to fully capture the mental representations of L2 learning behavior and performances.
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The collected data for the current research are limited to self-report survey. To avoid the bias of self-report studies (i.e. the person's feelings at the time they filled out the questionnaire), it may also be of interest for future research that longitudinal studies can be executed for researchers and educators to inspect the change of an individual learner over time. If the developing pattern of intentions and self-regulation with each learner is formulated, more appropriate teaching methods can be innovated and framed accordingly to achieve a better learning effect. Researchers may have a more far-reaching understanding of learners’ state of minds and how different tasks or learning environments affect students’ motivation and behaviors. With a combination of qualitative and quantitative research or microanalytic assessment, a more exhaustive item pools for intentions and self-regulatory capacity can be formed, based upon qualitative and introspective diaries, interviews, or observations, to further contribute to the motivational process rather than subjective self-reported measures in this study.
Thirdly, despite the encouraging results of the strong effect for implementation intentions in general, content orientation fails to explain self-regulatory capacity.
More research would be necessary to make definite differentiation among the subscales. Further research might usefully extend the present use of the taxonomy to examine the intentional effects when the distinctions and modifications are made to form a more rigorous survey. Additional research focusing on these aspects would be of great interest and value in understanding the motivational process of second language learning.
Last but not least, students of different learning goals and career plans may influence their choice and the effects of self-regulating strategies (Lin, 2003). For example, students from regular high school curriculum may be more exam-oriented whereas students from vocational high school curriculum may possess career-related
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goals for English learning. As a result, researchers are encouraged to replicate the present study procedure to examine the relative importance of intentions in explaining
goals for English learning. As a result, researchers are encouraged to replicate the present study procedure to examine the relative importance of intentions in explaining