17
Language Learner
Motivation: What
Motivates Motivation
Researchers?
Stephen Ryan
17.1 Introduction
Second language (L2) motivation as a field of research has expanded rapidly in recent years, attracting scholars from increasingly diverse educational contexts and theoretical perspectives. The move towards more
learner-centred approaches in language education, together with an
accompanying interest in the various contributions learners make to their
own learning, pushed the study of motivation into a prominent position
on the current research agenda. From a field consisting of a small group
of researchers and a handful of infrequent articles in the 1980s, L2 motivation research has thrived (Boo, Dörnyei, & Ryan, 2015), with articles frequently appearing in leading journals and the field even meriting its own
handbook (Lamb et al., forthcoming). Motivation, uniquely among the
so-called language learner individual differences, has been enthusiastically embraced by both researchers and classroom practitioners, resulting
in a fast-changing and rapidly expanding theoretical landscape.
This chapter examines some of the key shifts in recent thinking about
the motivation to learn a foreign language, some of the methodological
challenges these changes have posed, and some of the ways in which
the field has responded to those challenges. Two themes will reoccur: (1)
the scope of inquiry within motivation research is extensive; and (2) the
amount of research into language learning motivation in recent years and
the magnitude of the changes in thinking cannot be fully captured within
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a single chapter such as this. For these reasons, the account offered here
will be necessarily selective, focusing on certain key concepts while omitting others. Instead of attempting a comprehensive overview, I intend to
look at some of the underlying factors drawing researchers to the field in
ever greater numbers and to consider what this may hold for the future
development of motivation research.
17.2 Defining the Field
17.2.1 What is Motivation?
Motivation is a word that we come across in all walks of life and it is a
word that we all use. It is a word we all understand, yet our understandings of this term can differ greatly. Motivation as a term is both accessible
and malleable, and herein lies both the appeal and an essential weakness
of motivation as a concept for academic discussion. We all feel comfortable talking about motivation and with statements such as “Motivation is,
without question, the most complex and challenging issue facing teachers today” (Scheidecker & Freeman, 1999, p. 116). Stressing the crucial
role of motivation is common in the educational literature. I selected this
example from numerous other similar statements simply because the
adjectives “complex” and “challenging” employed here are particularly
revealing and pertinent to the line of argument I wish to pursue in this
chapter.
According to the American Psychological Association’s (APA) Glossary of
Psychological Terms, motivation is:
The process of starting, directing, and maintaining physical and psychological activities; includes mechanisms involved in preferences for one
activity over another and the vigor and persistence of responses. (http://
www.apa.org/research/action/glossary.aspx?tab=3)
This represents a precise and comprehensive definition, yet when we start
to think in concrete terms of the various factors influencing any human
activity, the definition becomes somewhat inadequate. Just think of any
activity with which you are currently involved and the various factors
influencing your efforts in pursuit of that activity. Some of those factors could relate to long-term, deeply held personal goals; some could be
immediate situational demands; some could be directed towards a clear
material reward; and some could be about avoiding possible negative
outcomes. The list goes on and this is what makes the study of motivation both fascinating and problematic. In fact, the term is so problematic
that the APA itself once considered removing it from its main database,
Psychological Abstracts (Walker & Symons, 1997).
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Moving on to the specifics of language learner motivation, an even more
complicated picture begins to emerge. Primarily due to the scale of the
challenge and the time periods involved, the motivation to learn a foreign
language is often regarded as being different from that of other learning
pursuits. Indeed, as I will explore in more depth in the next section, the
relationship between L2 motivation theory and general motivational psychology has been a key concern in the development of the field: to what
extent is learning a foreign language a school subject and to what extent is
it a special case, a unique undertaking with its own motivational concerns
(Ushioda, 2012)? A useful initial framework for discussion was provided
by Dörnyei (1994), who offered three distinct levels of analysis. The first
of these is the language level, which relates to various motivational aspects
of the target language, such as cultural vitality or the pragmatic benefits
associated with the language. At another level is the learner, and here we
are looking at the various characteristics the individual learner brings to
the learning process. The third level identified by Dörnyei is the learning
situation, which connects to situation-specific factors relating to the classroom setting, such as teachers, learning tasks, peer groups, and institutional or curricular objectives.
Dörnyei and Ryan (2015) state that motivation “provides the primary
impetus to initiate L2 learning and later the driving force to sustain the
long, often tedious learning process” (p. 72), and this highlights the scale
and scope of the challenge facing L2 motivation researchers. The factors
that initiate learning can often be very different from those that sustain
efforts to learn over the long-term. To what extent does research need to
focus on specific aspects of motivation and to what extent do models need
to shape the various aspects of motivation into a coherent whole?
17.2.2 What is Language Learning?
Just as it is difficult to pin down the concept of motivation, language learning is an activity that evades precise definition. Think of a young girl in
rural China studying English as a compulsory subject at school and as a key
component of high-stakes examinations, then think of a retired accountant in Germany taking a Chinese class with a group of fellow retirees once
a week on a Tuesday afternoon; consider a Syrian teenager recently arrived
in the UK and starting to learn English at a publicly funded class, then
consider a middle-aged Japanese woman studying Korean in preparation
for a short visit to Seoul as a tourist. All of these fall under the umbrella
heading “language learning” yet there are clearly huge differences in
the reasons for learning, probable learning goals, the degree of personal
investment in learning, and even likely learning outcomes. Furthermore,
if the term “language learning” covers a broad spectrum of activity, then
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it becomes increasingly problematic to speak of “language learners” as a
singular entity.
The challenge for L2 motivation research is to tie something as diverse
and disparate as language learning to a concept as huge and nebulous as
motivation, and to do so in a coherent and convincing manner. When
phrased in such a way it seems like an impossible task and one wonders
why anybody would take on such a challenge. Yet they do and continue
to do so in increasing numbers. In the rest of this chapter, I would like to
discuss how this has been done and consider why.
17.3 Early L2 Motivation Research
The development of L2 motivation theory is often described in terms of
three distinct phases: a social-psychological period; a period of realignment with mainstream education; and a more terminologically problematic current period (Al-Hoorie, 2017; Dörnyei, 2005; Dörnyei & Ryan, 2015;
Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2011). Although something of a thumbnail sketch,
this description was sufficient in the days when motivation research was
a minor concern on the periphery of the language education agenda.
However, as the field has expanded dramatically in the years since this
historical framework was first proposed, it is probably time to reconsider
this three-stage account.
17.3.1 The Social-Psychological Focus
The first sustained and systematic research into L2 motivation centred
around the work of Robert Gardner and a number of associates, primarily
social psychologists, in Canada (see Gardner, 2010: Gardner & Lambert,
1959, 1972), beginning in the late 1950s. Although Gardner’s contribution
appears to be undergoing something of a rehabilitation (Al-Hoorie, 2017;
Al-Hoorie & MacIntyre, 2019), as Dörnyei and Ushioda (2011) observe, talking about language learner motivation using Gardner’s terms now “has a
rather historical feel about it” (p. xi). Therefore, I do not wish to go into
too much detail regarding the specifics of theoretical models of this time,
but some knowledge of the origins of the field is essential for the current
discussion.
The key contribution of the social-psychological approach was the realization that the individual learner’s attitudes towards a target language
and towards the learning of that language are key antecedents to successful learning outcomes. From the comfort of our twenty-first century vantage point, this may not seem like much of a discovery, probably more
like common sense, but prior to this line of investigation the individual
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contribution of the learner had not featured on the research agenda.
The work of early motivation researchers can be regarded as part of the
broader post-war intellectual and cultural shift towards individualism, a
shift that paved the way for subsequent learner-centred approaches to language education.
Gardner’s research into the attitudes of language learners in Canada
eventually led to the development of what became known as the socioeducational model (see Gardner, 2010). Although a complex, and complicated, model of language acquisition connecting four different aspects of
the learning process—social milieu, individual differences, acquisition
contexts, and outcomes—Gardner’s work, often to his displeasure, is best
known for a dichotomous integrative–instrumental motivation distinction. An integrative orientation was said to arise from positive attitudes
towards the target culture with an instrumental orientation, on the other
hand, coming from pragmatic factors associated with proficiency in the
target language, such as better educational opportunities or career prospects. Backed by an impressive body of empirical research, the intuitive
appeal of the integrative–instrumental distinction made this the dominant model of language learner motivation going into the twenty-first
century.
Gardner’s model of language learner motivation was undoubtedly the
most influential of this period, but it was not the only one. Nevertheless,
all the models of the time were founded on a shared assumption that
learning a foreign language is qualitatively different from other school
subjects because foreign language learning involves key issues of individual identity, an openness to the values of an external target language community, and a willingness to adopt features from that community. These
researchers were social psychologists focused on macro-level analyses of
the interrelationships between social groups and contextual variables.
Their primary interest was not in the educational applications of their
research.
17.3.2 A Realignment with Educational Psychology
In a later work, one that provides an excellent overview of his research,
Gardner (2010) says of the socio-educational model:
It is not intended to provide explanations to individual teachers as to why
or why not some of their students are more or less successful than others,
or to give teachers advice on how to motivate their students, or to provide
reasons to students to help them understand their own success or lack
thereof. It is a model to account for general relationships in a parsimonious and testable structure that is subject to verification and replication.
(p. 26)
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In attempting to rebut criticism of his model, Gardner appears inadvertently to acknowledge fundamental flaws to his approach, certainly flaws
when considered from a practical classroom perspective. The most sustained complaint about Gardner’s model, and the whole social-psychological approach, was that it is not classroom-friendly, that it did not
“provide explanations to individual teachers”. This is a position concisely
summarized by Ushioda (2008), who argued that the social-psychological
approach to motivation research “yielded few genuinely useful insights
for teachers and learners” (p. 20). The social psychologists were not concerned with the pedagogic applications of their research, yet the audience
for this research was primarily an educational one, and by the 1990s,
there was an appetite for new, pedagogically relevant approaches to L2
motivation research, approaches that would reduce the conceptual gap
between motivational thinking in relation to foreign language learning
and that found in mainstream educational psychology.
An influential article by Crookes and Schmidt (1991) on “reopening the
motivation research agenda” is widely regarded as heralding what was
later referred to as a “motivational renaissance” (Gardner & Tremblay,
1994). The Crookes and Schmidt paper captured the mood of the times,
in which there were other voices expressing similar concerns (e.g., Au,
1988; Brown, 1990). It would be misleading to imply either a coherent
movement or agenda as the new interest in motivation was coming from
a diverse range of educational contexts and informed by widely differing
concerns, but Dörnyei and Ryan (2015) identify two broad trends influencing the developments of the time. Firstly, there was a perceived need
to integrate recent advances within mainstream educational psychology
into models of language learner motivation. Language learning motivation theory had developed in isolation, cut off from many of the significant developments in educational psychology that had occurred in the
latter half of the twentieth century, namely a move towards a cognitive
perspective that explained motivation in terms of attributions, expectancies and goals. Secondly, there were calls to move away from macro-perspective discussions of L2 motivation towards micro-perspectives
that focused on actual learning situations, a more “education friendly”
(Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2011, p. 279) approach.
One—ostensibly contradictory—consequence of the new, expanded
thinking was to limit the focus of inquiry of the emerging field. L2 motivation studies were moving away from the broader social context, increasingly focused on formal, instructed classroom learning. Research into
other, more naturalistic forms of language acquisition diverged both in
approach and in terminology from the course being pursued by motivation researchers. An illustration of this is Norton’s adoption of the term
“investment” (Norton, 2001; Peirce, 1995; Darvin & Norton, 2015) in
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preference to motivation. Informed by research into the identity struggles of immigrant learners and the unequal power relations between language learners and target language speakers, Norton moved away from
the psychological orientation of motivation to develop a more sociologically grounded approach. In contrast, mainstream motivation research
was becoming increasingly concentrated on investigations of the psychological dimension to formal classroom learning.
Going into the 1990s, L2 motivation research had been limited in both
its outlook and its outreach. There was insufficient research to constitute a
genuine field, and the little that existed was dominated by a single, somewhat narrow, perspective. However, entering the twenty-first century the
field had become energized and focused. L2 motivation research focused
on immediate contextual factors in formal learning situations and the
field had been revitalized by the incorporation of concepts from mainstream educational psychology. Perhaps the most influential of these theories, certainly in respect to the future development of the field, has been
self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Ryan & Deci, 2017). This theory—and in particular its twin conceptual pillars, intrinsic and extrinsic
motivation—has been one of the most influential constructs in motivational psychology, and since the earliest attempts to apply the theory to
language learning (Noels, Clément, & Pelletier, 1999, 2001; Noels et al.,
2000), its influence within L2 motivation studies has grown considerably
over the years (Sugita McEown, Noels, & Chaffee, 2014). Of course, there
were attempts to apply other leading educational theories to language
learner motivation, such as Williams and Burden’s (1997) work on attributions (Weiner, 1992, 2010), but it is perhaps self-determination theory that
gives the best indication of the direction in which the field was moving: in
addition to situational factors, research was shifting its attention towards
internal psychological needs and away from macro-level societal forces.
17.4 Recent L2 Motivation Research
17.4.1 The L2 Motivational Self System
A major turning point in the development of L2 motivation theory and
research is the publication of Zoltán Dörnyei’s (2005) influential book
The psychology of the language learner: Individual differences in second language
acquisition. This was a landmark publication that facilitated discussion
on a whole range of issues connected to language learner psychology,
yet the vast majority of citations of the text refer to a single section, the
presentation of the L2 Motivational Self System (L2MSS). This new motivational framework opened up the research agenda to new approaches
by putting learners’ needs for self-actualization at the heart of motivation
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and emerged from Dörnyei’s persistent attempts (1994; Dörnyei, & Csizér,
2002; Csizér & Dörnyei, 2005) to reinterpret the concept of integrativeness
in a way consistent with learning contexts where there was no immediate target language community with which to integrate. From Dörnyei’s
perspective, one of the anomalies of much of the empirical research in
the social-psychological tradition was the consistent finding of an integrative factor as a prominent aspect of language learner motivation in
contexts where it did not seem to make any sense. The concept of integrativeness was compatible with a context such as 1960s Canada, where
anglophones and francophones lived in close proximity and in apparently
neatly defined language communities. However, there are many learning
contexts, especially those where language learning is primarily a classroom activity and learners have little immediate contact with speakers
of the target language, in which the idea of integrating with a language
community is highly problematic. Dörnyei chose to reframe the concept
of integrativeness—the core concept at the heart of Gardner’s socio-educational model—as some form of emotional identification with the target language, and an exploration of this emotional identification was the
foundation of what became known as the L2MSS.
Even though Gardner (2010) had argued that, “acquisition involves making the language part of the self” (p. 7), this was presented as an outcome
of language acquisition, not the process itself. Dörnyei chose to put self
realization at the heart of language learner motivation, thus a core process
of acquisition. A more sophisticated explanation of how language became
a part of the self was called for, and in order to do this, Dörnyei turned to
two closely related concepts from mainstream psychology: Markus and
Nurius’ (1986) concept of possible selves and Higgins’ (1987) self-discrepancy theory. There is no need here for a detailed discussion of the theory
as there are numerous detailed accounts available (Dörnyei, 2005, 2009a,
2009b; Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2011). My interest is more with the influence
the theory has had on the subsequent development of the field. For the
purposes of the current chapter it is enough to say that the L2MSS offers a
broad framework based on the interactions of three core components: the
Ideal L2 Self; the Ought-to L2 Self; and the L2 Learning Experience. At the
centre of this motivational system is the Ideal L2 Self, which represents
a desirable yet possible self-image of the learner as a future L2 user, and
motivation is energized by the perceived discrepancies between that ideal
and the perceived current state. Ideal L2 self visions are constantly being
regulated and reshaped by the other two components. The Ought-to L2
Self emerges from the attributes that the learner sees as necessary to meet
the expectations of, and obligations to, others. The final component, the
L2 Learning Experience, is an ongoing internal narrative formed through
an interaction between interpretations of past successes and failures as a
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language learner together with assessments of a range of immediate situational factors.
If the period from the early 1990s can be regarded as a process of realignment between L2 motivation research and mainstream educational psychology, then the arrival of the L2MSS marks the point where L2 motivation
theory and research falls in step with the mainstream (Dörnyei & Ryan,
2015). Research into the psychology of human motivation is a “reemerging
field” (Ryan, 2012), and that re-emergence has been founded on the pillars
of interdisciplinarity, methodological development, and practical value.
The L2MSS opened up the L2 motivation research agenda, allowing for a
much wider range of theoretical, methodological, and practical interests.
17.4.2 The Surge in Interest and Output
A survey of post-2005 motivation research (Boo, Dörnyei, & Ryan, 2015)
identifies the L2MSS as the clearly dominant current model and highlights
ways in which the new, looser theoretical framework ushered in a willingness to experiment with new ideas and new approaches. This has resulted
in a fertile environment for experimentation, collaboration, and theoretical development, yet it has also proved to be something of a Pandora’s
Box. The self is a concept as huge and slippery as motivation, with diverse
conceptualizations reflecting a range of disciplines and perspectives
(MacIntyre, MacKinnon, & Clément, 2009; Mercer, 2012). Opening up the
motivation research agenda to notions of the self, and in particular the
dynamic conceptualization of the self outlined in Dörnyei’s (2009b) refinement of the L2MSS, not only expanded the scope of research, it changed
some of the ground rules. The self is full of contradictions, and the links
between self-concept and behaviour are unpredictable. Older models of
motivation were concerned with identifying discrete “individual differences”, measuring them, and plotting their generalizable, predictable
behavioural outcomes. However, in this new research landscape there was
no longer any place for static models of motivation or accounts based on
linear, cause–effect relationships.
The shift towards more dynamic accounts of motivation created an
openness to, and perhaps a need for, approaches to research that had
not previously been considered. As discussed earlier, one feature of the
departure from a social psychological approach was the inclusion of established concepts from educational psychology, such as attributions or selfdetermination theory, but in the aftermath of the L2MSS the field has witnessed an exciting readiness to experiment with even bolder ideas, such
as vision (Dörnyei & Kubanyiova, 2014), motivational dynamics (Dörnyei,
MacIntyre, & Henry, 2015), long-term motivation in the form of Directed
Motivational Currents (Dörnyei, Henry & Muir, 2016), and many more. It
seems that the enduring influence of the L2MSS has been not so much as
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a precise framework for empirical research, but more as a guiding metaphor that has allowed the field to flourish. Rather than describing and
evaluating this huge body of research, in the next section, I intend to focus
on the common themes that connect recent research and to ask what is it
that motivates motivation researchers?
17.4.3 The Attractions of Motivation Research
17.4.3.1 Intrinsic Interest
Perhaps more than anything else, the surge in research into language
learner motivation has been driven by an insatiable interest in the topic.
It is almost impossible to be involved in language education and not be
interested in motivation. It is also impossible to achieve a complete understanding of motivation; there is always something new to investigate or a
new perspective to consider. Motivation represents the interface between
the individual learner and learning outcomes. The scope of motivation
research includes macro-perspectives that look at broad patterns across
large populations, and it includes micro-perspectives that focus on specific contexts or individuals; it includes cross-sectional approaches that
look at motivation at a single point in time and approaches that seek to
understand ebbs and flows in motivation over extended periods of time.
There is something for everyone.
Not only is the scope of possible inquiry extensive and inclusive, the
topic is perceived to be important; to a certain extent, all aspects of successful language learning are predicated on learner motivation. Furthermore,
discussions of motivation often take place at the global level, dominated
by talk of learners and broad outcomes as opposed to the details of linguistic processes and development. For many involved in language education, especially those with a practical orientation, this has come as a
welcome and refreshing change, appearing to be more in tune with classroom realities than other highly focused, highly specialized areas of second language acquisition (SLA) research. Motivation allows us to look at
the big picture. A final point that should not be ignored is that this intrinsic interest in motivation has been enhanced by a number of well-written
and engaging works (e.g., Dörnyei, 2001; Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2011) that
have made theory and research accessible to an audience that perhaps
would have otherwise felt alienated from mainstream SLA research.
17.4.3.2 Methodologically Innovative and Inclusive
In its early years, the field of motivation research was synonymous with
quantitative research involving self-report questionnaire instruments analysed using various, often sophisticated, statistical techniques. However,
this is far from the case nowadays. The first signs of an openness to qualitative investigation began to appear in the 1990s (Ushioda, 1994, 1998), but
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it was not until the advent of the L2MSS that qualitative research received
broad acceptance. Somewhat inadvertently, it was perhaps early quantitative investigations (e.g., Ryan, 2009; Taguchi, Magid, & Papi, 2009) of the
L2MSS that facilitated a shift to a more sustained qualitative approach.
These studies—using established questionnaire methods—succeeded in
challenging the socio-educational model on its own quantitative terms
and establishing the legitimacy of the L2MSS, but they also served to highlight the limitations of quantitative investigation when describing motivation in terms of dynamic models of self-concept and personal vision.
Motivation as conceptualized in the L2MSS could not be researched satisfactorily through quantitative methods alone.
Qualitative research has proven especially appealing to practitioner
researchers, who are often put off by the scientific approach and averages
inherent in quantitative research. Furthermore, the barriers to entry can
be low; meaningful qualitative research into learner motivation does not
appear to require great technical expertise. One of the most influential of
all motivation studies (Ushioda, 1994, 1998, 2001) brought great insights
from a very simple research design. For practice-oriented researchers
this has proved enticing. In fact, it is also true that most of the quantitative research into L2 motivation has relied on basic inferential statistical
techniques, such as correlation analysis and t-tests. The current L2 motivation research environment welcomes both quantitative and qualitative
research, yet it does not require advanced research skills. This makes the
field highly attractive to newcomers.
Not only does the field welcome a range of methodological approaches,
it positively embraces innovation. A good illustration of this urge to
innovate is found in a recent edited collection on motivational dynamics
(Dörnyei, MacIntyre, & Henry, 2015). In addition to relatively conventional
approaches, such as qualitative interview design, gathering data on multiple timescales, and mixed methods, the book contains studies employing methods rarely encountered elsewhere, such as Q methodology (Irie
& Ryan, 2015), Idiodynamics (MacIntyre & Serroul, 2015), and Retrodictive
qualitative modelling (Chan, Dörnyei, & Henry, 2015). These are all
research methods that fall outside the language education mainstream
(see the methods section of this volume). It seems that the scale of the
challenge inherent in investigating language learner motivation demands
methodological innovation; the greater our understanding of motivation,
the greater our awareness becomes of the limitations of current knowledge and the need for new, fresh approaches.
17.4.3.3 Linking Theory and Practice
In an attempt to account for the surge in L2 motivation research output, Dörnyei and Ryan (2015) observe that motivation seems to be the
area “where theory and practice intersect most comfortably” (p. 103).
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Motivation is a topic that is immediately appealing to classroom practitioners, who see a practical value and relevance that they may not see
in other areas of theory and research. In a learner-centred view of language education, motivation is at the heart of the learning process and
improving motivation becomes a key to improving learning outcomes.
Motivation research appears to offer the promise of improved practice.
For practising language teachers, the field of motivation can offer a
gateway into the wider world of research. Often beginning with smallscale studies investigating their own teaching situations, teacherresearchers become exposed to new ideas and new approaches. For many
of these teacher-researchers, improving practice is the explicit goal, and,
freed from the disciplinary restraints faced by more academically oriented researchers, they feel able to improvise and innovate in a pragmatic
fashion. This can produce an extremely creative and supportive research
environment in which new ideas are enthusiastically tested and new
hybrids emerge. It creates a vibrant, fast-moving research environment
which can be attractive to those on the outside and stimulating for those
already inside.
17.4.3.4 A Positive, Optimistic View of Language Learning
At the heart of much motivation research is a belief in the potential of language learners. Learners can succeed if they have the motivation. Contrast
this with older views of language education that rest on notions of innate
aptitude or linguistic difficulty. Although the use of personal pronouns
says something about the age of the following statement, the sentiment
that “given motivation, it is inevitable that a human being will learn a second language if he is exposed to the language data” (Corder, 1967, p. 164)
underpins the shift to a learner-centred approach to language education.
Success is possible, even “inevitable”, for all those prepared to exert the
necessary efforts: put bluntly, motivation leads to success.
In earlier models of language education, the teacher was essentially
a technician with a knowledge of language and teaching techniques.
Language teaching was a matter of transmitting that knowledge of language to students using the most appropriate techniques. In a learnercentred world, the role of the teacher is something far more inspirational. The teacher is a motivator. Unsurprisingly, for many teachers and
teacher-researchers this is an enticing proposition. Who can resist the
allure of being a life-changing figure in someone else’s life, perhaps living forever in the memory of that person? Few teachers are drawn to
the profession by the prospect of financial gain, but for many the idea
of making a difference in people’s lives is a powerful attractor and sustaining professional vision. For such teachers, the motivation literature,
in particular teacher development material (see Dörnyei & Kubanyiova,
2014), can offer a perceptible “feel-good factor”, with uplifting and
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inspiring stories suggesting the promise of professional achievement
and personal fulfilment.
17.4.3.5
Summary
The discussion of the appeal of motivation research has been scattered with
adjectives such as interesting, important, accessible, uplifting, practical, relevant, engaging, positive, and optimistic. This accords with developments
elsewhere in psychology, most notably the positive psychology movement
(see Gabryś-Barker & Gałajda, 2016; MacIntyre, Gregersen, & Mercer, 2016),
in which the focus has shifted from a pathological view of psychology—
essentially curing problems, fixing that which is broken—to one where
the emphasis is on “the good things in life and the techniques that can
be shown to promote living well” (MacIntyre, 2016, p. 4). MacIntyre also
describes positive psychology as fitting “like a glove within the zeitgeist of
modern language pedagogy” (p. 3), and motivation researchers are entitled
to claim some of the credit for creating this positive zeitgeist. The challenge
for the field now is to adapt to the new conditions that it helped create.
17.4.4 A Time to Reflect
The last ten years or so have been a tremendously exciting time to be
involved in motivation research. It has been a period of intense activity,
rapid theoretical development, and bold methodological innovation.
However, after a period of such excitement, inevitably there comes a need
to step back and take stock of recent developments. I would like to begin
my own attempt at stocktaking by offering a simple outline of the historical development of the field, drawing heavily on Tuckman’s (1965) classic
model of group formation and dynamics.
Looking at Table 17.1, we can trace the development of L2 motivation research from its beginnings in a social psychological perspective
Table 17.1. Four stages in the development of L2 motivation theory and
research.
Dates
Defining characteristics
FORMATIVE Latter half of the A social psychological approach with a macro20th century
perspective, quantitative focus
NORMATIVE 1990s
The introduction of concepts from educational
psychology and a focus on classroom instruction
EXPANSIVE 2005–2015
A reframing of motivation based on notions of the
self leads to rapid expansion of the field, involving
increased levels of interest and a willingness to
experiment with new ideas and methods
REFLECTIVE 2016~
The field begins to stabilize around a few core concerns
while integrating with other areas of research
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unequivocally tied to quantitative methods. From these roots the field
begins to define itself through a “classroom friendly” approach drawing
on concepts from educational psychology. Research begins to concentrate
on investigations of formal classroom learning. The foundations of this
more precisely defined field facilitate a period of rapid expansion and,
inspired by the reframing of language learning motivation as a part of
the self system, researchers felt emboldened to try out new, innovative
approaches, both theoretical and methodological. It seems that we are
now moving into a period of maturity in which some of the innovative
zeal will be replaced by a more considered approach. In the next section, I
would like to suggest some key areas for consideration.
17.4.4.1 Connecting Motivation to Other Research
Despite the frequently articulated perception that motivation research
has always fallen outside the mainstream SLA agenda (Ellis, 2008, p. 690),
virtually all recent publications offering an overview of SLA or applied linguistics, such as the current volume, have a prominent section devoted to
the topic of motivation. L2 motivation is now mainstream, and research
has achieved a level of maturity and prominence that requires a greater
understanding of how it connects to other areas of research.
Earlier in the chapter, I discussed how part of the appeal of motivation research was that it discussed learner and language learning outcomes at a global level. Consequently, the field has never really engaged
with questions of how motivation affects specific processes of learning
or acquisition. Ushioda (2010, 2016) has called for a “small lens” to
motivation research, one in which motivation is studied in relation to
other aspects of learning, such as metacognition, attention, or noticing. It would be inaccurate to say that motivation studies have completely ignored specific processes of acquisition, but the few studies
that have attempted to do so reveal some of the challenges involved in
such an undertaking. In an ambitious study, Takahashi (2005) explored
the role of motivation in developing the pragmalinguistic awareness
of Japanese university learners of English, finding that learners who
scored highly on a measure of intrinsic motivation were particularly
aware of certain request forms and idiomatic expressions. However,
from an L2 motivation perspective, the study was based on a measure of
motivation not found elsewhere in the L2 motivation literature, making
it difficult to situate the findings within the main body of L2 motivation
research. Another study of Japanese university learners (Saito, Dewaele,
& Hanzawa, 2017) examined the relationship between motivation and
speech development. In this case, the study used measures of motivation familiar to L2 motivation researchers, but these were measures
based on constructs that would be considered somewhat outdated to
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Language Learner Motivation: What Motivates Motivation Researchers?
a specialist motivation audience. Investigating the role of motivation
in specific processes of language acquisition would appear to be a possible future direction for research, but in practice very few researchers
are equipped with the necessary expertise or interest to deal with two
simultaneous areas of inquiry. If the field wishes to be taken seriously
as a legitimate area of inquiry within SLA, then this is the challenge it
must embrace.
In many ways, motivation has served as a form of academic shorthand
for a wider interest in the psychology of language learners, incorporating
a range of other concepts such as beliefs, self-regulation, emotions, and
agency. Perhaps due to the perceived practical value of motivation, for a
very long time scholarly resources have been concentrated in this area,
perhaps to the detriment of many other aspects of learner psychology
(Mercer, 2017). Recent years have witnessed a trend towards looking at
language learner psychology as a whole (Dörnyei & Ryan, 2015; Mercer,
Ryan, & Williams, 2012; Williams, Mercer, & Ryan, 2015), and it may be
that we will see the emphasis on motivation become less pronounced in
coming years, with a shift to considerations of how motivation interacts
with other constructs as part of a more complete account of language
learner psychology.
The field now stands at a crossroads. Does it seek to integrate more fully
with mainstream SLA or does it choose an independent route directed
more towards understanding learner psychology than language acquisition? This is a fundamental question and one more likely to be answered
by the concerns of newcomers joining the field than the aims of currently
established scholars.
17.4.4.2 The Language Learner and the Person
The bulk of motivation studies have been conducted in contexts where a
foreign language is taught as a compulsory subject, and especially English
in locations where learners rarely encounter the language outside the
classroom, such as Japan or China (Boo, Dörnyei, & Ryan, 2015). An underlying assumption of many of these studies is that through a better understanding of motivation, educators will be better equipped to deal with the
motivation “problem” in their classes. However, it may be pertinent to ask
whose problem this is. Is motivation research problematizing something
that is not actually a problem for individual learners, something that is
only a problem within the context of a motivation research agenda that
assumes high levels of motivation to be desirable for everyone? Perhaps
learners in such contexts are perfectly happy with their current levels of
motivation to learn a foreign language; perhaps they have other equally
valid priorities in their lives. This creates an almost ethical question: what
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right do we have to intervene in and problematize the lives of people who
do not have any great desire to master a foreign language? This question
can only really be addressed by looking at the whole person as opposed to
isolating the language learner from that whole (Ushioda, 2009). Language
learning motivation research grew in conjunction with a greater interest
in the contributions individual learners make to their own learning, but a
key finding of recent motivation research has been that a learner-centred
approach is insufficient as we cannot understand the language learner
without reference to the whole person.
In contexts where language is taught as a compulsory subject, there is
a fundamental motivational problem, namely the issue of choice. Choice
is the foundation of motivation, and many language learners around the
world, learners who are the focus of most motivation research, have little choice in the decision to learn a language. In such cases, it makes little sense to discuss motivation without exploring connections to other
related concepts, such as engagement (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris,
2004). Engagement is yet another broad concept, overlapping with motivation, and “refers to the degree of attention, curiosity, interest, optimism, and passion that students show when they are learning or being
taught” (Abbot, 2015). Connecting motivation to engagement facilitates
a discussion that considers the broader educational experience, not only
the language learning element, and this is an approach that seems consistent with calls to understand the whole person and not just the language
learner.
17.5 Conclusion
It is testament to the vitality and scope of the field of L2 motivation
research that I could probably have written this chapter discussing a
very different set of motivational concepts constructed around a very
different narrative, and that account would have been equally valid. For
example, I could have based the discussion around important calls for
motivation research to shed its monolingual bias and pay more attention to the multilingual turn in language education (Thompson, 2017)
or I could have focused on the need to integrate emotion into models of
motivation (Ryan, 2007). Nevertheless, whatever approach I had adopted,
two points would have been common to any account: (1) there is a lot of
motivation research around; and (2) this research covers a wide range of
theoretical and methodological perspectives. I would like to conclude by
borrowing Ryan and Legate’s (2012) metaphor of a “fly’s eye” approach
to researching human motivation. The optical system of a fly is based
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Language Learner Motivation: What Motivates Motivation Researchers?
around multiple “eyes” feeding information from different directions
and distances to form a single image. No single theoretical conceptualization of motivation can give us the full picture, neither can any methodological approach investigate motivation in its entirety. It is only through
the combination of multiple perspectives that we can gain a meaningful
understanding.
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