Open AccessThe Psychological and Cognitive Processes Underlying College Students’ Demotivation to Learn English
Author(s) -
Xiaobin Ren,
M.L. Jirapa Abhakorn
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
journal of language teaching and research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2053-0684
pISSN - 1798-4769
DOI - 10.17507/jltr.1302.08
Subject(s) - psychology , college english , construct (python library) , cognition , mathematics education , value (mathematics) , social psychology , computer science , neuroscience , machine learning , programming language
This study aims to construct a model to explain Chinese college students’ psychological and cognitive processes underlying their demotivation to learn English. Grounded theory method and cognitive maps were creatively combined to analyze the interview data from 21 college students in China’s universities. This study found three paths underlying students’ demotivation to learn English: 1) the large discrepancy between students’ actual selves and their possible selves might firstly produce motivation for a short period but then could cause low self-efficacy and negative affects. The large discrepancies might also directly generate negative affects among college students; those different negative affects could lead to demotivation of English learning. 2) college students’ low ought-to selves could cause their low ideal selves and then demotivation of English learning; 3) demotivation to learn English might also associate with low value of English learning in college students’ minds. At the end of this research, some pedagogical implications are given based on those findings.