A study on vocational students motivation for learning english for specific purposes (esp)

INTRODUCTION

Rationale of the study

Nowadays, when considered a genuine lingua franca in various fields of the profession globally, English is used more and more frequently Moreover, in the context of worldwide globalization and integration, when many foreign companies have been directly investing in Vietnam, Vietnamese learners desire to master English specifically in their particular areas Consequently, the great demand for English in academic, vocational, and professional subjects has been growing rapidly English for Specific Purposes (ESP), therefore, has been offered in college and university curricula to meet the learners’ need to obtain English in specific contexts

Especially, ESP is extensively used in the area of commerce, foreign economic relations, and academic and so on to deal with the trading affairs or transactions, widen the public relations or further their education Consequently, learning of ESP is essential for both occupational and educational purposes (Strevens, 1977) In the scope of occupational, ESP taught must meet the learners’ requirement for pre-experience Particularly, vocational college students who essentially learn both the language of the job and about the job must learn ESP in order that they can use it to communicate and work in the field that relates to ESP utility Therefore, learners’ communication ability and proficiency should take the first place in the ESP courses’ objectives

Besides, the current approach of education focuses on learning rather than teaching; and learners centered rather than teacher centered This new teaching approach couples a focus on individual learners (e.g., experiences, perspectives, backgrounds, interests and needs) which are most effective in promoting the highest levels of motivation, learning and achievement for all learners (McCombs, 2000) Thus, paying much attention to learners is essential Moreover, with the ESP approach, analysis of learners’ needs and learners’ characteristics at least should be taken into consideration since “need analysis” is and always will be important and fundamental part of ESP (Bruton, 2009)

Moreover, in the literature of language acquisition, it is clear that language acquisition involves environmental characteristics and learners’ characteristics (Gardner, 2005) On the one hand, socio-cultural milieu or opportunities to use the language in reality, for example, EFL context where language is taught belong to environmental characteristics Learner’ own ability such as intelligence and language aptitude or personality variables such as learning style are the learner’s characteristics They are objective affective factors, which are difficult to be tailored, by teachers or learners in the learning process These variables are assumed to be out of their control

On the other hand, the quality of instruction, for example, teacher’s methodology and curriculum belong to environmental characteristics It is partially objective influence; and seems relatively to be in the control of teachers It would mean that although teacher can adjust their methodology or curriculum to be better in teaching, better learning might or might not occur because the success also depends on the learners’ own characteristics Actually, on this aspect, students’ affect such as attitudes, motivation can be considered to be subjective influences which can be interfered by teachers and learners themselves if these subjects would like the level of attitudes and motivation to be increased and become advantageous to the language learning and teaching Indeed, in terms of second or foreign language acquisition, motivation and attitudes are vital affective factors that relate to the learners’ success There have been a variety of researches on the role of these two factors The overall findings show that positive attitudes and motivations are related to success in second language learning (Lambert, 1963; Gardner, 1985; Dornyei, 1994) Branch (2016) also said that all learners, instructors, people who make learning materials, and researchers believe that motivation is a key part of learning a second or foreign language Thus, in the literature of language acquisition achievement in general and ESP learning in particular, much attention must be paid to learners’ affective factor such as motivation

Obviously, students who have high motivation toward language learning tend to be more successful in obtaining their desired goals compared to those who are less motivated In other words, without motivation, students at many universities often encounter difficulties and fail to reach their purposes in language learning Therefore, a better understanding of students’ motivation for learning L2 may receive a beneficial influence on the process of assisting learners in achieving their goals The significance of motivation in second language learning, hence, has attracted much attention from scholars worldwide Numerous studies in EFL contexts have been undertaken to evaluate the students’ motivation at high schools, colleges, and universities However, only a few studies have focused on students of different majors at vocational colleges, especially those learning ESP

In the context of education in Vietnam, more and more universities and are built and students have more chances to become university or college learners after high school Accordingly, it comes to the fact that more-able learners attend prestigious universities and colleges; lesser-able learners enroll in open or in- service schools As a result, the majority of college courses tend to suffer the risk of lacking students for registration although there is no requirement of entrance exam or diagnostic test to register in these courses Less and less learners attend college programs, so these courses must recruit whoever apply for the course without any criteria or selection in spite of their lack of ability and expectation Because of this, many college learners do not have the right goals or ambition to learn Inevitably, the researcher’ school where college courses endure the above situation encounter the causal difficulty that college learners do not have positive attitudes and motivation for learning almost all the school subjects including ESP subject Moreover, in these courses, the learners’ variety (e.g., level of background of general English, age, hometown, accent, marital status and the so forth) is assumed to affect the level of learners’ motivation leading the discrepancy in the level of this factor Therefore, the teaching and learning ESP might not be convenient and effective in such situation

Bearing in mind the concern, the researcher conducted a preliminary investigation through conversations with teachers in the current school about second-year college learners and their goals for learning It could be sometimes assumed by many teachers that “the majority of learners enroll in this type of course because there is nowhere else to register”, “they may attend the course to shelter for next year's university entrance examination,” or “to avoid joining the army.” It would be inferred that learners might not have proper motives for learning the courses, including ESP Additionally, from the author's in-class observation, it was found that there is a tendency for low levels of motivation for learning ESP First, the number of students who volunteered to review the old lesson at the beginning of every class and correct the exercise or do a task in class decreased Second, there was a decline in the level of homework accomplishment, the intensity of students’ responses and interaction in class, and so on Third, records of the ESP period test and final examination scores, ESP classroom attendance, and the number of emails, telephone messages, or conversation consultations from students asking for teacher consultations were deleted This evidence implies that their motivation for learning ESP do not seem to be very high From these comes the conclusive assumption that college learners do not seem to have strong motivation and positive attitudes towards their vocational studies in general and towards learning ESP in specific

Thus, the researcher, an ESP teacher at Kien Giang Vocational College, thinks it is very important to clearly investigate the learners’ motivation for learning ESP to check whether they are motivated and if their attitudes are positive will be useful information in helping to find out better ways of instruction, more suitable methodology and so on which contributes to enhance the quality of teaching and learning ESP For this reason, ESP learning motivation of second-year college students should be formally investigated in order that insight about learners can be attained The information, then, may be helpful and useful to many parties such as teachers, educator, and institution and so on.

Objectives of the study

With the concern that second-year vocational college students are motivated to learn ESP or not, the researcher conducts this study to determine the two following goals:

1 To examine the levels and types of motivation possessed by second-year vocational college students in learning ESP courses

2 To investigate whether there are any differences in motivation for learning ESP among students of different majors.

Research questions

The study is mostly focused on finding the answers to the questions below:

1 What levels and types of motivation do second-year vocational college students possess when learning ESP courses?

2 Are there any differences in motivation for learning ESP among the students of different majors? If yes, what are they?

Significance of the study

This study is conducted with both theoretical and practical significance In terms of the theoretical importance of this study, a significant contribution is made to the existing literature by adding synthesized information related to the student’s motivation for learning ESP, particularly the students who attend two-year programs at vocational colleges The current study highlights the need for such research by exploring students’ instrumental and integrative motivation Furthermore, the study also provides further understanding of the reasons why these students learn ESP and the differences in motivation for learning ESP among the students of different majors Therefore, the study’s findings may hopefully be utilized as a reference for those who want to conduct research on related topics

In terms of the practical significance of the study, the findings of this study might, firstly, help as a replication to confirm the previous research and give more extent to the degree of generalization about the level and type of motivation Secondly, while there have been numerous studies of this type, the focus has been on ESL and EFL learners in primary, secondary, college, and university settings rather than second-year vocational college learners Therefore, the current study, which focuses on the motivation of second-year vocational college learners, might contribute as an additional drawing to the overall picture of motivation in the literature of second or foreign language acquisition in general and in ESP in particular

Especially, the study is expected to be helpful to teachers, administrators, and students in the current schools as well as those in a similar context With in-depth factual information about the levels and types of motivation for learning ESP, hopefully, this study will somewhat assist teachers in finding appropriate strategies that can motivate students in ESP classes The writer also hopes that this research will be useful for all teachers and students on the mission to explore a better way of teaching and learning ESP Last but not least, the study is expected to provide helpful references for further research in this field of study.

Organization of the study

The thesis is divided into five chapters: introduction, literature review, methodology, findings and discussion, and conclusion and implications.

Chapter One: The Introduction provides, from general to specific, context for the conduct of the study, the research scope, and its significance

Chapter Two: Literature Review, Motivation and ESP's theoretical framework, including definitions, roles, types, and components, is presented first Then, relevant studies are discussed to raise awareness of a better research method and confirm the need for research studies

Chapter Three: Research Methodology introduces the research questions and design Following that, participants are described, and instruments are set up The chapter concludes with a discussion of data collection and analysis

Chapter Four: Findings and Discussion, the results of the study on the motivation of second-year vocational students to learn ESP are presented Whenever possible, results are also accompanied by interpretations

Chapter Five: Conclusion and Implications, begins with a summary of the findings of the research Then, some implications are derived Following the chapter are limitations and suggestions for future research.

LITERATURE REVIEW

English for specific purposes (ESP)

Since its beginnings in the late 1950s, English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has gradually gained and become an integral component of English language instruction Numerous linguists, such as Robinson (1980), Mackay & Mountford (1978), Belcher

(2006), Hyland (2007), Kic-Drgas (2014), Idaryani & Fidyati (2021), Pranoto & Suprayogi (2020), Paltridge & Starfield (2012), Richards (2001), Hutchinson & Waters

(1987), pay considerable attention to ESP

In terms of definition, there are differences in how people interpret the meaning of ESP to distinguish with English for General Purposes (EGP) It means differently to different persons Despite the fact that there are numerous ways to define ESP, these linguists have reached a consensus on a few fundamental points According to Robinson

(1980), ESP is the instruction of English to students who have particular objectives and targets He claimed that these objectives could be specialist, academic, science, or technical Similarly, Mackay & Mountford (1978, p.2) defined ESP as “obviously practical English teaching” The purpose, according to them, is defined by the student's demands and may be academic, vocational, or empirical

However, Hutchinson & Waters’ (1987, p.19) defined “ESP is an approach to language teaching in which all decisions as to content and method are based on the learners’ reasons for learning” The term “specific” in ESP refers to the specific purposes for which learners learn a language, not the nature of language they learn Therefore, the focus of ESP is on the purposes for which learners learn, not on the jargon or register they learn Moreover, according to Belcher (2006) & Hyland (2007), ESP focuses on meeting learners’ specific linguistic requirements within a specialized area or career Thus, it is clear that when discussing ESP, the issue of purpose and learner needs is more prominent than that in EGP (Kic-Drgas, 2014)

Regarding the learners, Idaryani & Fidyati (2021) defined ESP as teaching- learning English developed for "adult students," in which the course material is based on their requirements and linked to their potential career workplace setting It is consistent with Mackay & Mountford (1978), who defined ESP as the "special language" that takes place in particular settings among "adult learners." They asserted that these learners are typically mature and "greatly aware" of the purposes for which they require English proficiency for their future professional needs Because of the duties of their specialty that necessitate the use of the appropriate ESP, adults employ specific language in meaningful situations

Moreover, these learners should be at an intermediate or advanced level Before enrolling in ESP classes, students are expected to acquire a substantial foundation in general English In addition, Pranoto & Suprayogi (2020) asserted that ESP could serve as a foundation for learning any variety of English By this, they imply that ESP should be viewed as a method or strategy as opposed to a product In addition, Paltridge & Starfield (2012) demonstrated that ESP is a learner-centered approach to English language acquisition According to Triristina & Khabib (2021), Richards (2001) stated that ESP is a language teaching and learning method aimed at making language classes more relevant to the student's requirements

It should come as no surprise that the vast majority of academics believe that the term "ESP" denotes, in general, a method of teaching English that is centered on the requirements of the student The English for Specific Purposes (ESP) curriculum is not the same as general English because it focuses on specific topics and the skills that ESP students need to succeed in a particular field

However, Tran (2020) asserts that the majority of definitions center their attention on three distinct aspects: the learners, the characteristics of the language that is going to be taught and used, and the environments in which the first two aspects will take place These three facets of extrasensory perception are intimately connected It is a method of ESP that the learners (adults) who are learning specific English (specialized discourse) will use in a particular setting (business, engineering, the medical field, science, etc.) in an effort to achieve a practical purpose

To be more specific to the term, many scholars have categorized ESP forms, and different people have diverse ways of dividing ESP into different types (Cater, 1983; Dudley Evans & St John, 1998; Hutchinson & Waters, 1987; Ibrahim, 2010) Cater

(1983) asserted that it would be appropriate to divide ESP into three areas: 1) limited language English; 2) academic and occupational (EAOP) English; and 3) relevant English subjects (cited in Octaberlina and Asrifan, 2021) Furthermore, Dudley Evans and St John (1998) took the view that ESP has two other types: English for General Academic Purposes (EGAP) and English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) In his viewpoint, while EGAP concentrates on the teaching of language skills common to various disciplines, ESAP is involved in teaching language skills unique to different disciplines Hutchinson & Waters (1987) did a good job of clarifying ESP by proposing a metaphoric classification via the ELT tree According to them, ESP in the ELT tree includes three branches: English for Science and Technology (EST), English for Business and Economics (EBE), and English for Social Sciences (ESS) Each term is next subdivided into EAP and EOP Specifically, they explained that both EAP and EOP have no significant difference in terms of their aims, whereas the way to achieve them is different EAP and EOP then can be categorized into sub-branches such as "English for Medical," English for Technician," English for Psychology," English for Economics," etc Furthermore, these sub-branches may continue to be divided into smaller ones depending on the objectives or aims of the learners and the teaching curriculum

Another division of ESP was suggested by Ibrahim (2010), who stated that ESP can be divided into two types: English for Academic Purpose (EAP) and English for

Occupational Purposes (EOP) This means that EAP is intended for students who want to improve their academic skills in specific areas, such as teaching English or conducting research EOP, on the other hand, is made for people who want to improve their communication skills for careers in technology, engineering, law, business, etc (Idaryani & Fidyati, 2021)

It is obvious that ESP comprises various types This viewpoint from Ibrahim (2010) appears to be very useful in the current study to demonstrate the involved issues

Concerning the role of ESP, Rao (2019), as cited in Alcalde & Santamara, (2021) said that ESP is emerging as a response to a growing awareness that some types of learners have specialized needs that are not met in general English courses

It can be seen that as a result of the rapid development of society and economy, the accelerating rate of globalization, and the shortcomings of general English courses, ESP courses have been playing a prominent and essential role in ELT and have gradually turned into the mainstream for second language learning worldwide (Wu, 2014) Moreover, Sari et al (2021) added that the since language is a means of communication instead of specific phonetic, grammar, and linguistic items to be studied, the importance of ESP has become increasingly apparent Besides, with a clear purpose toward specific outcomes, ESP is recognized as the most disciplined among learners; therefore, it is learned more and more Indeed, the more the economy develops, the more ESP becomes necessary for international transactions, especially ESP, which supplies learners’ communicative competence in using English for a specific discipline or professional skill Studying English for ESP, therefore, has become a vitally important issue in countries where English is taught as a second or foreign language (Gatehouse, 2001) Vietnam is not a special case The significance of English is growing as the country develops, not only economically but also culturally and socially Vietnam's language education has been directly influenced by its relationships with China, Russia, and France, as stated by Wright (2002), and since Vietnam's open-door policy, “doi moi” was implemented in 1986, English has become increasingly significant Over ninety percent of language learners study English (Do, 2006) In addition to EGP, which is taught earlier in school beginning in the third grade, and EAP, which is the primary requirement for higher education such as a BA, MA, or doctoral degree or study abroad, ESP is essential for employees' professional development and a means of international communication among pre-service and in-service business professionals On account of the use of ESP in Vietnam, a developing country with a large source of labor potential, more Vietnamese go abroad to work, study, or travel, and more foreigners come to Vietnam as tourists, workers, or investors In addition, as predicted by Coleman (2010),

"some recent studies are beginning to demonstrate that there may be a positive relationship between English and employability" (ibid., p.16), people who qualify as English have access to a variety of opportunities to obtain good jobs, to work abroad, or to work for foreign companies

In addition, a common certification in this specialized field (TOIEC) is a requirement for school graduation, company recruitment, and enrollment ESP must be acquired as a bridge from EGP to ESP by a large number of students majoring in a variety of disciplines (e.g., trade, commerce, shipping, public relations, and so on)

Motivation

It is rather difficult for theorists to reach consensus on the definition of

“motivation” although the word sounds easy and simple In fact, motivation is an abstract and complicated phenomenon, which cannot be fully defined from a single facet Therefore, there are a number of definitions depending on the fields of the definer (e.g., Gardner, 1985; Ames & Ames, 1989; Brown, 1994; Bomia et al., 1997; Ellis, 1997; Kanfer, 1998; Rodio, 2002; Dửrnyei, 2010) Motivation is defined as the impetus to create and sustain intentions and goal-seeking acts (Ames & Ames, 1989) Moreover, Kanfer (1998) considered motivation as “psychological mechanism governing the direction, intensity, and persistence of action not due solely to individual differences in ability or to overwhelming environmental demand that coerce or force action.” Indeed, on this perspective, if one is motivated in his or her work, one can clearly delineate the way to go, how much attempt one should try and how much time should be spent on that objective task In addition, it is not assumed to be the cause of either individual ability or environmental demand Similarly, in Rodio (2002), motivation was considered as “a thought or emotion that stimulates or direct one’s attention or energy towards the wanting of a goal.” Briefly, motivation is something that belongs to psychological, emotional aspect that stimulates one on the way to access one’s goal

2.2.2 Motivation in Second/Foreign language learning

In the context of learning, and especially learning English as a second or foreign language, what exactly does “motivation” entail? Many researchers have come up with different ways to explain what motivates learners to learn a second language

Bomia et al (1997) defined motivation as “students' willingness, need, and desire to take part in the learning process” That is, learning motivation occurs when a student recognizes the significance of what he or she is about to learn, has a strong expectation of gaining it, and becomes prepared to study it

Moreover, with a similar view when perceiving motivation as an inner source that pushes learners to achieve in L2 learning, Dornyei (2001, p.7) said that “people's reasons for deciding to do something, how hard they are going to work at it, and how long they are willing to keep doing the activity are all explained by their level of motivation” These two definitions, however, don't seem to be enough for a learner to consistently take part in the learning process This is because a learner who is willing, needs, and wants to learn but doesn't put in the effort to learn won't be able to consistently take part in the learning process The same is true if a learner wants to please a teacher or parent, get good grades to get into college, or win a scholarship, rather than because he or she wants to learn (Phan, 2011)

Ellis (1997) defines the term as "attitudes and affective states that influence the amount of effort and desire that second-language students exert to acquire the language."

Thus, Ellis demonstrated that motivation relates to the attitudes and emotions of learners, which impact their effort and desire to acquire knowledge

Gardner (1985, p 10), widely regarded as the founder of L2 motivation research, defined motivation as "the combination of effort, the desire to achieve the goal of language acquisition and positive attitudes toward language acquisition." Clearly, in Gardner's view, "effort or motivational intensity, desire, and attitudes" are three primary elements that motivate language learners to devote time and effort to acquiring L2

In short, Gardner's (1985) definition of motivation was used in this study The term

"motivation" refers to English and ESP learning motivation

Gardner, along with other psychologists such as Lambert & Clément (1959, 1985), is usually regarded as the fathers of L2 motivation research As social psychologists, they argued that learning a second language “must be viewed as a central social psychological phenomenon” (p 193), distinct from academic subjects like Math and Physics According to Gardner & Lambert (1972), motivation to learn a second language differs from motivation to master other subjects They reasoned that a second language learner must not only acquire new knowledge such as grammar and vocabulary, but also demonstrate a willingness to integrate into the community speaking the second language

As a result, from a socio-psychological standpoint, L2 motivation research was initially an isolated study topic with no connection to mainstream motivational philosophy (for reviews, see Dửrnyei & Ushioda, 2011; Oxford & Shearin, 1994) As Gardner’s socio- psychological theory of L2 motivation is one of few theories which explicitly discuss types of motivation and his and colleagues’ socio-educational model comprises the

“motivational intensity” construct (Dửrnyei, 2001c), which related to the present research, these areas are discussed below

Gardner & Lambert (1972) proposed two distinct types of motivation when defining motivation The two types are instrumental motivation and integrative motivation A learner who is driven by an integrative motivation has a genuine interest in acquiring additional linguistic skills to improve their ability to communicate with others and to stay close to communities that speak the target language Otherwise, an individual who is motivated to learn a language for instrumental reasons is interested in the language primarily because of its potential utility as a tool for achieving other goals, such as obtaining a necessary qualification, obtaining a better job and so on This learner's focus is on how the language can be used to further other goals

Gardner's theory's second major feature is the socio-educational model of second language acquisition (SLA) The socio-educational model sought to portray the role of diverse individual differences in students’ second language learning Gardner's (2006) most recently updated version of the socio-education model of second language acquisition defines motivation as effort (motivation intensity), desire to learn the L2, and attitude toward learning the L2 A motivated L2 learner exhibits all of these characteristics when studying a second language

Parallelly, Deci & Ryan (1985) worked on the other two types of motivation These are intrinsic and extrinsic motivations The former is present among the students Learners learn because it gives them a sense of accomplishment and improves their self- concept The latter is concerned with something external They put effort into the tasks because they expect that their participation will result in positive outcomes such as praise, a reward, or something similar

Since then, two trends in motivation theory have emerged in the literature They occasionally cause ambiguity among novelty researchers In addition, it marked the beginning of numerous studies and the completion of several dissertations Based on the two concepts of motivation, three approaches to conducting empirical research on motivation have been developed Some researchers favored the integrative and instrumental model of motivation (e.g., Rahman, 2005; Qashoa, 2006; Degang, 2010; Rifai, 2010a; At-tatimi & Rahim, 2011; Ghazvini & Khajehpour, 2011 and the so on)

In contrast, the others used extrinsic and intrinsic motivation respectively (e.g., Noels, Pelletier & Vallerand, 2000; Javid, Al-asmari & Farooq, 2012 and so on) The most recent fashion trend utilized a modified model that was adapted from two or other models (e.g., Williams, Burden & Lanvers, 2002; Rian, 2007; Yunus & Abdullah, 2011a and so on)

In addition to these two tendencies for classifying different types of motivation, there has also been a third type of motivation, which is known as developmental or personal motivation This type of motivation focuses on the individual's growth and development It refers to the motivation that comes from one's own personal growth or satisfaction with one's own life It involves things like watching movies and reading books written in English, among other things (Cooper & Fishman, 1977, cited in Al- Tamimi & Shuib, 2009) In point of fact, there is room for this kind of motivation somewhere within the categories of motivation For instance, in terms of personal motivation, someone who watches movies is able to listen to native speakers and comprehend the culture of those native speakers In the context of English as a Foreign Language (EFL), this particular kind of motivation might be categorized as integrative motivation If going to the movies, reading books, or surfing the internet is thought of as a way to gain information in order to broaden one's knowledge, then this kind of motivation could be considered an instrumental one in terms of developmental motivation Therefore, the two primary forms of motivation that Gardner describes can sometimes work against this type of developmental or personal motivation (1985) It depends on whether an end or a means is being used to accomplish something in English

In the end, in addition to the types of motivation that have already been described, such as instrumental, integrative, intrinsic, extrinsic, and personal motivation, there was yet another type of motivation that, in fact, received very little attention in the literature This type of motivation is called extrinsic motivation Skehan contributed to one of them with his work (1989) After analyzing the findings of studies that investigated the connection between achievement and the psychosocial model of motivation, he came to the following conclusion: " The weight of the evidence tips ever-so-slightly in favor of the theory that successful learning is driven by a desire to learn, rather than the other way around." (cited in Dickinson, 1995, p 172) After that, it is given the name

"resultative" motivation, which refers to the motivation that comes from the success of learning a language (Ellis, 1997) To put it another way, motivation may be both the cause of second learning and the result of the satisfaction that learners experienced from their successes in learning Learning could become either more or less motivating depending on the circumstances

Attitudes toward learning ESP

As concluded in the definition of motivation section, the motivation of the vocational students in the current study is comprised of three sub-constructs: motivational intensity (effort), desire to learn ESP, and attitudes toward learning ESP Hence, in this part, it is necessary to mention attitudes toward learning ESP Therefore, the writer presents the aspects of attitudes consisting of the definition, the roles, and the elements of attitudes that are related to the purposes of the study

Attitudes are a component of psychology that appear to be incoherent in terms of the meaning they are intended to convey Many linguists pay a significant amount of attention to the term (e.g., Gardner, 1985; Ajzen, 1988; Eagly & Chaiken, 1993; and Dornyei, 2001) Firstly, according to Dornyei (2001), an attitude is nothing more than a person's preferences in terms of what they like and don't like However, it does not appear that likes and dislikes are sufficient to cover what is meant by "attitudes" in this definition For instance, somebody might declare, "I do not like ESP," but at the same time they might believe, "ESP is very important." Both of these statements are reflective of various attitudes toward the English language Similarly, Ajzen (1988) defined attitude as a “favorable or unfavorable reaction to an object, person, institution, or event.” This definition is a bit more specific than the previous one That is, all it takes to determine an individual's attitudes toward something is for them to respond to the question of what aspect of the topic they prefer or dislike Therefore, these straightforward definitions only cover one facet of attitudes and do not adequately convey the full scope of what attitudes entail At that time, Eagly & Chaiken (1993, p.1) as cited in Tran (2009, p.24) defined attitude as a “psychological tendency that shows itself by judging something favorably or unfavorably.” It means that one's favor and evaluation of a particular entity are the building blocks upon which attitude is constructed It appears to have a more comprehensive scope than the first two definitions However, in the setting of this research, "attitude" underlying emotions, opinions, feelings, preferences, evaluations, and behaviors regarding the objects of their attitudes, regardless of whether these feelings are positive or negative As stated by Gardner

(1985), attitude is the procedure for assessing and responding to a world reference or an attitudinal thing focused on our personal views or perspectives of the character of this denotation

2.3.2 The role of attitudes in language learning

Numerous scholars (e.g., Finocchiaro, 1989; Clement & Noels, 1994; Brown, 1994; Ellis, 1994; Lightbown & Pada, 1999; Gardner & Masgoret, 2003) have conducted extensive research on the significance of attitudes

First, there is a common belief that learners' positive attitudes have a significant impact on their learning and success For example, according to Finocchiaro (1989, p.48, ibid.), "attitudes toward students, teachers, community members, and others with whom students interact are all causal factors for motivation." In other words, attitudes play a significant role in fostering learning motivations Thus, learners will be more motivated to learn if they have positive attitudes toward their classmates, teachers, and community

In contrast, if they do not feel valued by their class, teachers, or the people they will interact with, they will not be motivated to pursue that learning task Then, a study conducted by Clement & Noels (1994, ibid.) on second language learners in Hungary revealed a positive correlation between the learners' attitudes toward English learning and their achievement It can be inferred that the more positive attitudes students possess, the greater their success This is because when they appreciate and have strong beliefs in what they are doing, they will be motivated and take the appropriate actions, allowing for achievement Similarly, Gardner & Masgoret (2003) investigated 75 samples of published articles, unpublished articles, and dissertations and confirmed that

"attitudes toward learning situations are positively associated with achievement in SLA" (p 205) In addition, Brown (1994) stated that a learner's negative or positive attitudes have a significant impact on his successful "acquisition of proficiency." In similar to the previous statement, he agreed that attitudes play a significant role in the proficiency attainment of language learners If students have more optimistic attitudes, they will attain a higher level of proficiency Simultaneously, another study in the SLA field by a renowned researcher, Ellis (1994), contributed to the importance of attitudes in language learning by demonstrating that negative attitudes can "hinder" learning Similarly, Lightbown & Spada (1999) asserted that if language learners had positive attitudes toward the speakers of the language, they would want to interact with them more

In conclusion, attitudes play a significant role in language acquisition For effective learning, negative attitudes must be diminished and replaced with positive ones However, this obligation appears difficult to fulfill It requires endless attempts from students, teachers, administrators, and curriculum designers, among others

Attitudes are undeniably a psychological phenomenon of such complexity that they cannot be understood simply by focusing on an aspect of feelings or assessment

To investigate attitudes, comprehensive research on numerous attitudinal aspects must be conducted Some sociologists (Krech, Crutchfield & Ballachey, 1962, p 29), as cited by Seki (2004), viewed attitudes as enduring structures of either favorable or adverse assessments, thoughts, and feelings, and either positive or negative actions toward social entities

First, attitudes consist of either favorable or unfavorable conceptions or evaluations of an item, such as "English is essential" or "English is not essential." Then, feelings are incited, such as "I prefer English" or "I despise English." Finally, a particular action may have been the result of their prior evaluation and emotions That is, the person may or may not study English more diligently

Moreover, on explaining the constructs of attitudes, Wenden (1991) proposed the components of attitudes which is relevant to the concept of attitudes in the current study is that the term “attitudes” include the three components namely, cognitive, affective and behavioral A cognitive component is made up of beliefs and ideas or opinions about the object of attitude The affective one refers to the feelings and emotions that one has towards an object such as likes or dislikes, ‘with’ or against’ Finally, behavioral component is relevant to one’s consisting actions or behavioral intentions towards the object (cited in Al-tamimi & Shuib, 2009)

In brief, the elements, which contribute to the calculation of overall attitudes in the current study, consist of attitudes towards learning ESP which include items that are based on cognitive, affective and behavioral aspects of attitudes towards learning ESP

The widespread use of the AMTB in examining the integrative and instrumental orientations of language learners around the world has demonstrated the importance of Gardner's theory in L2 motivation research Based on what was just talked about in the literature review, this study made the conceptual framework shown in Figure 1 In the present research, a modified version of Gardner's (1985) AMTB will be employed to assess motivation Motivation is comprised of three components: Motivational intensity

(effort), Desire to learn ESP, and Attitudes toward learning ESP Moreover, it is also related to two variables: Instrumental and Integrative motivations Additionally, Gardner (2005) also pointed out that these two constructs are positively correlated with one another By this he means, learners who own high integrativeness also have high levels of instrumentality (Lai, 2013)

Figure 2 1 A modified AMTB of Gardner (1985) for measuring second -year vocational college students’ motivation

- Attitudes towards learning ESP Instrumental motivation

Previous studies on learners’ motivation for learning English and ESP

Numerous studies have been conducted on the motivation of students to study English and ESP The majority of studies indicate that students possess high levels of instrumental and integrative motivation when learning English or ESP

Primarily, in Taiwan, Lai (2013) conducted a study to investigate the motivations and orientations of 267 undergraduate EFL learners at a Science and Technology University in New Taipei City The researchers utilized the most recent theory of motivation, the L2 Motivational Self System, and adapted a questionnaire available in the literature as the survey instrument The majority of participants studied English for both instrumental and integrative purposes, according to the findings

Another study was that of Alaga (2016), who focused on examining the level of motivation and attitude of students at the College of Arts and Sciences, Samar State University in the Philippines toward learning English Through using two instruments, the AMTB and Language Attitudes Survey instruments, the researchers found that both instrumental and integrative motivations were being characterized by the students This finding aligns with the findings of other studies such as Wallace & Leong (2020) and Zhang, Dai & Wang (2020), which found that EFL Chinese students demonstrated high instrumental as well as integrative motivation for learning English These results are consistent with Brown’s (2000) argument that most second-language learning situations involve a mixture of instrumental and integrative motivations

Specifically, some studies discover that students possess a higher degree of instrumentality than integrativeness in L2 learning In Iran, for instance, Shirbagi (2008) investigated learners’ instrumental and integrative orientations for learning English The study used a questionnaire to collect data from 400 students at Tabriz and Kurdistan Universities The results revealed that Iranian students learn English because of instrumental motivation rather than integrative motivation

In terms of investigating motivation of vocational students for learning English, Redfield, Figoni & Levin (2009) studied the motivation for learning English among 446 Japanese technical students from three universities The results demonstrated that the instrumental motivation of students to learn English was considerably higher than their integrative motivation These students primarily desired to learn English for academic and professional reasons

Similarly, Tahaineh & Daana (2013) conducted a study in which 184 Jordanian EFL female undergraduates majoring in English language and literature at Al Balqa' Applied University and Princess Alia University College-Amman, Jordan, were surveyed using Gardner's Attitude/ Motivation Test Battery The purpose of this study was to determine the students' tendency toward the two types of motivation for learning English (AMTB) The findings indicated that the students were more motivated to learn English for academic and practical reasons, as indicated by the fact that they were more instrumental in their motivation

Wimolmas (2013) examined the kinds of motivation for learning English of thirty first-year undergraduates at an International Institute of Engineering and Technology in Thailand by using the same instrument - the questionnaire adapted from Gardner's AMTB The students were studying at an International Institute of Engineering and Technology in Thailand The most important discovery that was made was that students' instrumental motivation for learning English was significantly higher than their integrative motivation for doing so These results are comparable to the ones that were discovered in a quantitative study that was carried out in Pakistan by Abdur, Hafiz, Sargodha, Ayesha, Nadia & Asma (2014) to investigate the role that motivation plays in the process of English language learning for learners in Pakistan In that study, it was found that students' motivation was determined more by instrumental orientations such as getting good grades, gaining access to higher education, or benefiting from their future careers than it was by integrative purposes

In contrast, other studies have found that students' integrative motivation, as opposed to their instrumental motivation, is more influential in the process of learning a second language Gardner (1985) proposed, for instance, that integrative motivation was more important than instrumental motivation in the process of learning a foreign language This idea was based on research that he conducted He explained that integrative motivation involves attitudes and predetermined goals, both of which are extremely important in the process of learning a foreign language and, as a result, determine the success of the language learner It was discovered by Gardner, Day & Maclntyre (1992) that students who had higher levels of integrative motivation demonstrated superior vocabulary learning abilities According to Gardner, Day & Maclntyre's points of view, Hernandez & Wang (2008) discovered that English language learners who had a higher level of integrative motivation put in more effort during the process of learning and achieved higher levels of second language proficiency This finding is in line with the three authors’ opinions

Then, Sayadian & Lashkarian (2010) collected responses from five hundred Iranian students at Yazd University who were not majoring in English to investigate the students' motivations and perspectives regarding the study of English The results from the quantitative data showed that they learn English for instrumental reasons and that integrative motivation was also the dominant orientation among them to learn EFL In addition, Attamimi & Rahim (2011) concluded a quantitative and qualitative study of

142 students in their fourth year that Yemeni EFL students developed strong integrative tendencies toward the local target language group and a high level of motivation to learn English The findings of this study were similar to the findings of the study conducted by Attamimi & Rahim (2011)

Nevertheless, more pertinently to ESP, only some studies were closer to motivation in the field of ESP (e.g., Liu, 2007; Al-Tamimi & Shuib, 2009; Bruton, 2009; Degang, 2010; Makrami, 2010; Tsao, 2011; Siddiq et al., 2019, Altalib, 2019)

First, Liu (2007) used a slightly altered version of the 44-item questionnaire that Gardner (1985) and Clement et al (1994) developed and gave it to 202 Chinese university students in their third year who were not majoring in English Students had favorable attitudes toward learning English and were highly motivated to do so; however, they were more instrumentally motivated than integratively motivated, and a positive correlation existed between their English proficiency and their attitudes and motivation

Then, Al-Tamimi & Shuib (2009) conducted a study on 81 petroleum university students in Yemen to find out what motivated them and how they felt about ESP The students were asked about their perceptions of the petroleum industry They discovered that the students cared more about learning English for practical or personal reasons than for reasons that learning English helped them learn other things In addition, they have positive attitudes regarding the social value of English as well as the educational status of the language

More pertinent to the field of ESP, Bruton (2009) compared the attitudes of a group of employees from a five-star hotel in Chiang Mai toward English for specific purposes and general English for specific purposes Evidence has shown that there is no significant difference in attitudes between the two components and that general business English with a broader range of topics can empower them in the occupational purpose domain Also, in Thailand, Degang (2010) investigated the English-learning motivation of second-year Thai undergraduates majoring in business English at an English- language university He discovered that students are equally divided between instrumental and integrative learning and are highly motivated It is relatively simple to explain this outcome Because Thailand is such a popular tourist destination, learning English to integrate and conduct business are both crucial The most valuable aspect of this study is the practical participants (employees and managers) who are currently at work; as a result, their attitudes are based on actual working conditions

In Taiwan, Tsao (2011) described a survey of 351 students and 23 faculty members at a technological university regarding their attitudes toward ESP The results indicated that students preferred ESP to EGP, whereas teachers were reluctant to replace EGP with ESP The student's proficiency level was deemed insufficient by both ESP instructors to meet course requirements Regarding the factors that influence the effectiveness of an ESP course, they hold divergent opinions The first option highlights the actual course The latter emphasizes the analysis of students' needs, learning capacities, and learning motivations

Alimyar (2020) says that Siddiq, Miri & Sarwarzada (2019) looked at how and why Afghan undergraduate students at Heart University in Afghanistan felt about ESP and EGP courses The results of a survey of 942 students and interviews with 7 Afghan university teachers showed that most of the students were interested in learning both ESP and EGP However, they were more interested in learning ESP and EGP because they thought it would help them improve their education, career, and economy in the future In general, the results of the two studies were convincing enough to get students interested in learning ESP However, they did not mention whether there were differences between students’ motivation and their different majors

Research gap

Aside from the literature review, which provided the researcher with foundational theories of learning motivation, the review of relevant studies provided the researcher with a general picture of research work in the field, including its significance and shortcomings Ellis & Johnson (1994, p 7) said that ESP is an area of learning English that isn't studied as much as it could be Particularly, there is little research on motivating learners to acquire ESP, particularly second-year college students whose general English proficiency is low, who are assumed to have no choice but to enroll in university or college, and who appear to have no higher academic goals Consequently, the findings of this study may contribute to filling this gap in the literature with useful information regarding the motivation of second-year vocational college students toward ESP

Up until now, this chapter has gone over some of the issues that are important to the motivational areas and the research questions In fact, it provides an overview of how ESP and motivation have been defined, classified, and constructed, as well as how their magnitude has been reflected in the language learning process and implementations in recent studies conducted in Vietnam and other countries.

RESEACH METHODOLOGY

Research design

The purpose of this study was to investigate the different levels and types of motivation for learning ESP that is presented among students attending vocational colleges That is, rather than attempting to identify causes and effects, the focus of the current research is on describing the situation It is recommended that descriptive research be carried out to achieve this goal because it is more suitable (Hale, 2011) In addition, descriptive research seeks to answer the question "what is," and as a result, survey techniques are frequently utilized in the process of data collection for descriptive studies (Borg & Gall, 1989, cited in AECT, 2001)

The current survey compiles both quantitative data from questionnaires and qualitative data from interviews conducted in sequential order There are many different reasons why it was decided to use a mixed-methods approach that involved triangulating different sources of data To begin, the observance of limitations inherent to a single method might be rendered irrelevant or null and void (Creswell, 2003) Second, the researcher will have a greater sense of assurance regarding the results of the findings if the findings from the questionnaire survey and those of an interview regarding the same phenomena are consistent with one another (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2000) Thirdly, it can help to give a fuller picture and address many different aspects of phenomena with profound understanding (Silverman, 2000, as cited in Al-Tamimi, 2009) In conclusion, according to Tellis (1997), the need for triangulation arises from the ethical need to confirm the concurrent validity and reliability of scientific research in recent times This need for confirmation is what drives the need for triangulation.

Research setting

Kien Giang Vocational College (KVC) was the location where this research was carried out The college has a combined total of one hundred and fifty teachers and other staff members At the undergraduate level, the college offers several different training programs that each last for two years There were over 1,500 students enrolled in a variety of courses, such as Accounting, Information Technology (IT), Im-exporting, and Hotel and restaurant management At KVC, students of all different majors are required to take English as one of their classes

In the first year, they are required to complete two general English courses, including English 1 and English 2, as well as ESP 1 Each General English class consists of sixty periods and lasts for ten weeks Students must complete two basic English courses before enrolling in ESP 1, which is also divided into 60 periods and studied for ten weeks Then, second-year students must complete ESP 2 in 72 periods lasting eight weeks, assuming they have already completed ESP 1 Finally, every single one of these vocational students at KVC is required to hand in a TOEIC certificate with a score of

450 or higher before they can graduate.

Participants

The students who are currently enrolled in first-year and second-year programs at Kien Giang Vocational College during the academic year 2022-2023 were recruited to take part in the present study They are in four majors: Hotel and restaurant management, Im-exporting, Accounting, and Information technology (IT) Informants’ background knowledge is EGP, learned in lower and upper secondary school around seven to ten years ago, and at least one course of ESP at the author's school The participants include students of the first year (freshman) and second year (sophomores) who completed two EGP courses and at least one ESP course The type of education for which graduates will be certificated is full-time for learners who attend class during the day

The researcher took into account the size of the samples, which is a factor that plays a significant role in the validity and reliability of the study This is since having samples that are either too small or too large could alter the data or cause problems with the analysis of the data, and a good maximum sample size is typically somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of the population (Morse, 2000)

As a result, 300 out of more than 1500 students had a sample size that was neither too large nor too small for data analysis However, only 240 of the 300 questionnaires that were distributed to the students were returned, and 235 of those returned questionnaires were valid in their entirety The presence of valid responses indicates that each question on the questionnaire was addressed in its entirety The participants' backgrounds were described in greater detail in Table 3.1

Table 3.1 Student’s background information for questionnaire

Twenty students were selected for the interview process Half of them were selected from the students who volunteered to join in the interview In addition, the researcher randomly selected the rest of the students from the group of students who were not voluntarily participating in the interview and appointed them to the remaining positions It was so done to avoid the assumption that if all of respondents are volunteers, they may tend to be eager, favored in the concerning issues and vice versa Table 3.2 also includes a description of the respondent's background information in greater detail

Table 3 2 Student’s background information for interview

Background information Number Total number

Instruments

As was mentioned earlier, the use of a mixed-method approach was highly valued because it was able to assist in providing complete answers to both of the research questions As a result, we collected data through the use of questionnaires and interviews

On the one side, "survey questions help researchers to collect data that students are willing to share about themselves, like their opinions and desires about studying," (Mackey & Gass, 2005, p 92-93) In addition, psychological aspects such as motivation are elusive and difficult to evaluate directly; therefore, it is best to interpret the results of the psychological tests based on the participants

Interviews, on the other side (Makrami, 2010), offer direct connections to information that can be found "within a guy's brain," which is information that cannot be acquired from the survey In addition to this, they "consider it possible to assess how an individual understands (expertise and knowledge), how an individual enjoys or does not enjoy (quality and choice), and how an individual perceives (beliefs and attitudes")" (Tuckman, 1972, cited in Cohen et al., 2001, p 268)

In order to be perfectly useful for collecting data, a questionnaire must be carefully designed, tested, and checked for validity and reliability Hence, this kind of instrument in the current study had to pass many procedures (e.g., review of the literature for the theory or framework of construction; consultation with a supervisor and other researchers and professors in the field; design; adaptation; piloting; and so on)

In the designing stage, the content and language of the questionnaire were taken into consideration Besides, the format with clear instructions and ways of receiving responses to the questions in the questionnaire also required much attention from the author

To get started, the primary foundation for building questionnaire constructs was a questionnaire that was selected based on how well it fits the topic of the present research That was Gardner's (1985) Attitudes and Motivation Test Battery, also abbreviated as AMTB (see Appendix 1) However, in the innovative questionnaire, some items from the original AMTB were omitted, and some new items were adopted from Dhakal's research (2018) to investigate gender differences among Thai EFL undergraduate students studying English Conversation 1 at King Mongkut's University of Technology in North Bangkok This was done to investigate gender differences among Thai EFL undergraduate students studying English Conversation 1 at King Mongkut's University of Technology in North Bangkok To be more specific, items 1 through 21, as well as items 25 and 26, were adapted from Gardner's (1985), whereas items 22 through 24, as well as items 27 through 30, were adapted from Dhakal (2018)

Besides, on the aspect of language used in the questionnaire, it is in the native language to participants of lower level of understanding target language and in the target language to those of higher level Nevertheless, the questionnaire in the present study was a bilingual one The reason why the bilingual version was formed was to encourage full completions from the participants That is, if only the Vietnamese version had been used, the respondents would have felt bored because the questionnaire is about English but not written in English In contrast, if they read all the words in the questionnaire in mere English, it might cause difficulty for participants at a lower level of proficiency to complete the questionnaire with an exact and profound understanding Additionally, this might lead to the case that respondents became too stressed and uncomfortable to give true answers to the questions As a result, a bilingual questionnaire was aimed for the language to be exposed to participants More details, before the English initially designed questionnaire (1) was translated into Vietnamese by the researcher, it had been commented and revised by the researcher’s supervisor for its construction Then, the Vietnamese version was checked by the author’s colleague, who teaches Vietnamese literature and documentation Next, the Vietnamese version was translated into the English version (2) by the researcher’s colleague, who is a teacher of English After that, the originally designed English version (1) and the translated English version (2) were compared It means that the back translation method was applied for preparing the questionnaire so that the Vietnamese version can be adjusted by the researcher to avoid any difference or mismatch between the English language in Version 1 and the Vietnamese language

Additionally, in terms of format, the aim and instructions of a questionnaire were designed and then introduced to some students for checking whether it made readers feel clear and safe enough to give responses Subsequently, the bilingual questionnaire (see appendix 2) was composed and submitted to the researcher’s supervisor for final consultation Finally, the outcome questionnaire was ready to be used for piloting after having received feedback and corrections

This study's questionnaire was divided into two major sections

Section 1 contained four multiple-choice questions (1-4) that inquired about the students' background information, including their gender, major, number of years of study, and English-learning experience This section contains multiple-choice questions because they are typically quicker and simpler to answer than open-ended questions Section 2 investigated the level of motivation As mentioned in the conceptual framework, motivation was broken into three clusters: motivation intensity (1-6); desire to learn ESP (7-12); and attitudes towards learning ESP (13-18) Then, the level of instrumental motivation (items 19-24) and the level of integrative (items 25-30) among the students in learning ESP

In qualitative research, interviews are the most common method of data collection

To find out the reasons why these students learn ESP, I interviewed them to get in-depth data supporting data from questionnaires Interview, moreover, is described as “one of the most powerful ways in which we try to understand our fellow human beings” (Fontana & Frey, 2000, as cited in Creswell, 2012, p.46) Besides, it is considered easy

“because it is ‘just talking’, and talking is natural since most of us talk regularly” (Griffee, 2012, p.160) In addition, data from interview are friendly since they can be combined with other kinds of data to strengthen the findings of the study (Griffee, 2012) Since these vocational students from 4 groups learned at the same school and the time was limited, focus group interviews were beneficial in this case (Creswell, 2012)

In comparison to individual interviews, group interviews save time and allow the researcher to collect sufficient data more quickly Then, I applied focus group interviews to “encourage a variety of viewpoints on the topic in focus for the group” (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009, p 150)

To support and validate the results of the questionnaires, four open-ended questions were developed for focus group discussion to investigate the motivations and needs of ESP learners Included in Appendix 3 are the interview questions.

Data collection procedure

At the very beginning of the study, permission was gained from the administrators of the author’s school, who appreciated the practical value of the target study and showed their willingness to create convenient conditions for its conduct Opportunely, the present study was carried out in the first semester of 2022 when the first ESP course had just finished from the final examination to the assessment The procedure for gathering information was arranged in two steps The first one was administering questionnaires within the second week of November The administering interview was then conducted two weeks later, following a quick review of the questionnaire responses to determine if there were any inferred modifications for the subsequent interview

In the initial phase of data collection, the questionnaires were administered by the researcher, who first obtained permission from the instructor whose students were selected to respond at that time Before distributing the questionnaires, the researcher explained briefly the questionnaire's purpose, its confidentiality, anonymity, non- traceability, and non-maleficence (with no name required), as well as the benefits of the research findings to ESP learning and teaching in the school for both students and teachers The participants started filling out the questionnaires once they were motivated, prepared, and had mastered how to respond Thirty items of the questionnaire were to be completed in 15 minutes under the researcher's supervision so that she could control the administration process and both encourage and discourage sloppy completion There were 300 questionnaires sent out, but only 240 were returned Five applications were rejected due to a lack of demographic information and incompleteness

In the second stage of the data collection procedure, interviews were conducted The overall interviews were conducted within one week after the questionnaire The stage consisted of three main steps: interviewing, transcription, and translation

First of all, face-to-face interviews were conducted with 20 participants around the school campus where it was quiet and private enough with no interruption from outside

(e.g., the teacher’s room, an empty classroom, the library) at a participant's convenient time (e.g., break time, practice time, and so on) Procedurally, in the interviewing process, the aim and content of the interview as well as the way of recording data were primarily introduced by the interviewer After that, with the readiness of the participants, first came the warm-up and prior questions; then came the main questions; finally, the closing and thanks were exposed to the interviewees with immediate clarifications Especially, two recorders (i.e., audio and video) were utilized for recording the interview First, it was to be feared that there might have been incidental technical problems such as being out of memory, having a dead battery, and so on Second, it was to facilitate and increase the reliability of the transcription later

Subsequently, the data was transcribed independently by the researcher and the researcher’s colleague specializing in Vietnamese literature, who once gave assistance in designing the questionnaire For transcription, the audio was used by the author and the audio was utilized by the author’s colleague The reason for doing so was that the researcher was also the interviewer and thus witnessed everything that happened in the interview, while the other external transcriber was not present in the interview; therefore, she could be supported by non-verbal communication from the videotape That was to elude the subjective data interpretation and minimize the inevitably lost data from the original encounter

Eventually, the data, which had just been transcribed from the interview, was translated by the researcher and the researcher’s colleague, a teacher of English, as introduced above The reason why the co-translator method was employed was to respect the authentic live interview situation and diminish the difference in meaning between the oral set of rules in the native language and the written form in the target language.

Data analysis procedure

Data analysis is the process of ordering and organizing data to extract useful information from it (Smith, 2012) This method of organizing and analyzing data critically is based on two types of information: questionnaires and interviews

With the help of data from the software SPSS 20.0, a descriptive analysis was used to find out why vocational learners wanted to learn ESP The statistical methods below were used to figure out the answers to the questions in this study:

First, to find out how motivated the participants were to learn ESP, a one-sample t-test was done to see if the means were significantly different from the standard mean for motivation The Linkert scale ranges from 1 to 5 to assess the extent to which learners' attitudes are positive or negative and the extent to which they are motivated to learn ESP (strongly disagree–strongly agree) The interpretation of the scale, which employed five levels of agreement and disagreement in attitudes and motivation, is based on the criteria outlined in Table 3.3 from Linkert (1932, cited in Degang, 2010, p

Table 3 3 Interpretation of score results in terms of attitudes and motivation levels

Scale Mean range Attitudinal /motivational level Score range

In addition, according to Best (1970), the mean was used to interpret the average score of each variable as well as the overall mean score of clusters of items about the level and type of attitudes and motivation The higher the mean score of each item, the higher the level of attitude or motivation and the dominant type, whereas the lower the mean score, the lower the level of attitude or motivation

Second, a pair sample-t-test was carried out to find out whether instrumentality or integrativeness was more influential

Third, a one-way ANOVA test was applied to see whether there were significant differences in levels of instrumental and integrative motivation among the students with different majors

Interview questions were utilized to deepen understanding and interpretation of the results from the quantitative data which examined the motivation for learning ESP as a whole whilst the qualitative data addressed the issues as individual Moreover, this type of data was to explore the learners’ reasons why they learn ESP and ideas for better ESP learning Hence, for qualitative data analysis, the responses to interview questions must be processed through some steps: categorizing and content analysis

On the former, the respondents’ information was categorized in accordance with the three precoded main interview questions (i.e., cluster of question 1,2,3: MOTI; cluster of question 4: TYPE) The framework for coding motivation was based on the theory of Gardner (1985) On the later, reading and judgments was involved in this process It means that the data was incubated, synthesized, culled and interpreted to identify its meanings and implications.

Validity and reliability

A pilot serves multiple purposes, primarily to improve the questionnaire's reliability, validity, and usability (Oppenheim, 1992; Morrison, 1993; Wilson & Mclean,

1994, cited in Cohen et al., 2000) The questionnaire was piloted with ten students who shared the same characteristics as those described by the participants

In order to collect accurate and trustworthy data, the researcher translated the questionnaire into Vietnamese before distributing it to the participants so that it would be easily understood Before the participants responded to the questionnaire, they were given instructions, including the purposes of the questionnaire and how to answer it, so that they could respond with the appropriate attitude and in the proper manner The participants were instructed to answer the questions truthfully and precisely, without sharing their thoughts or conversing with others The piloting students completed their questionnaires without difficulty in 15 to 20 minutes After collecting the questionnaire, the researcher asks the participants if they have any questions regarding the items According to the comments of the participants, each questionnaire item was simple to comprehend and answer without difficulty This indicated that the questionnaire utilized in this study met the criteria for face validity (Brown, 2001)

Belson cited two perspectives regarding the validity and reliability of the questionnaires: "first, whether the participants who complete the questionnaires answer them accurately and truthfully; and second, whether those who do not return the questionnaires would have provided comparable responses to the returnees" (Belson,

1986, p 35) Before the participants responded to the questionnaire, therefore, certain instructions were provided, such as the purposes of the questionnaire and how to respond, so that the students could answer the questions with the appropriate attitude and in the proper manner The participants were instructed to answer the questions honestly and precisely, without sharing their thoughts or conversing with one another In addition, details and clarifications were provided in Vietnamese for students who struggled to comprehend the material Additionally, to prevent the loss of completed questionnaires, the administrator immediately collected them after completion

In addition, the researcher considered the size of the sample, which is crucial to the validity and dependability of the study This is because samples that are too small or too large may alter the data or interfere with the analysis of the data (Morse, 2000) Therefore, 235 students were an adequate sample size for data analysis

Moreover, in this study, the Cronbach’s alphas for total items as in Table 3.4 and each group (see Appendix 5) were >0.90 as in Table which also met the standard index of reliability The following guidelines for alpha coefficients were proposed by Cohen, Manion, and Morrison: "> 0.90 incredibly reliable; 0.80-0.90 high reliability; 0.70-0.79 reliable; 0.60-0.69 slightly reliable; 0.60 undesirable small reliability" (Cohen, Manion

As a direct result of this, the questionnaire scores and the internal consistency scores for the two different motivational constructs that were investigated in this study were both very reliable and consistent

Table 3 4 The Cronbach’s Alpha index of the questionnaire

The interviews' validity and reliability were also discussed Silver (1993) suggested that a pilot interview conducted with care can increase its reliability Therefore, a pilot interview was conducted with a group of three students to ensure that the interview questions were meaningful and easy to comprehend As a result of conducting a pilot interview beforehand, the questions for the formal study's group interviews were carefully crafted to explore students' motivation for learning ESP In the formal study, each group was given four open-ended questions to discuss The students with the same major were grouped; this may have increased the validity because they were friends with each other and could freely share their ideas or even argue over those of others Summarizing the students' responses after the interview is "likely to induce greater bias because the delay may cause the interviewer to forget some of the details," which are "most likely to be those that contradict the interviewer's expectations" (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2007, p 155) Therefore, all interviews were meticulously recorded and transcribed to ensure that no pertinent information from the participants was missed

The chapter has presented the methodology employed to answer the research questions of the current study First, the research design explained the logical steps taken to link coherently the research questions to data collection, analysis, and interpretation Then came the presentation of the participants who joined the study and the research instruments that were selected, piloted, and officially employed in ways that could best provide data relevant to the research topic Finally, the procedures for obtaining data as well as the ways to analyze these data were mentioned The following part will be Chapter 4, which reveals the research result of the current study from the process of data analysis

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

Findings

4.1.1 Findings from the questionnaire surveys

The answers to the two research questions are presented in the following format: the level and type of motivation possessed by vocational students and the differences in students' motivation in terms of their majors

4.1.1.1 Level of vocational students’ motivation for learning ESP

To examine the level of motivation for learning ESP among vocational students, the motivational construct, which consists of three sub-constructs: motivational intensity (1-6), desire to learn ESP (7-12), and attitudes towards learning ESP (13-18), will be evaluated in the following sections:

Motivational intensity Level of intensity

1 I work so hard to learn ESP 3.02 94 3.8 26.8 38.3 26.0 5.1

2 I put aside distractions and focus on my task while I’m learning ESP

3 When I have difficulty in comprehending anything in ESP, I always seek assistance from my ESP teacher

4 I don’t pay heed to the comments I get in my ESP lesson in the class (*)

5 When my ESP teacher gives me back my assignments, I don’t bother to check them (*)

6 I often give up and stop attempting to comprehend the more complex aspects of ESP (*)

Firstly, Table 4.1 captures the participants' motivational intensity to learn ESP All the items had mean scores ranging from 2.78 to 3.79, and the overall mean score on this scale was 3.44, which is in the moderate range with a standard deviation of 1.03 Besides, there was one item’s mean falling below the moderate level, which is set at 3.0, while none of the items' means reached the high level As a result, we do not consider this mean range to be high In general, more than fifty-four percent of learners (54.3%) had the motivation to study ESP at a high level (40.3% at a high level and 13.5% at the highest level), whereas the intensity of the participants was at a low level (20.4%), with 3.4% of participants having the lowest degree of intensity Also, up to 25.4% of the students were a little too serious for average ESP learning

When each item is evaluated individually, item 3 stands out as having the highest mean level (M = 3.79; SD =.87) Nearly three-quarters of participants (73.6%) believed that “When I have difficulty comprehending anything in ESP, I always seek assistance from my ESP teacher” Furthermore, reverse item 5 had an exceptional mean (M = 3.74;

SD =.90) It demonstrated that the majority of students do not bother to review their work after receiving it from their ESP instructor While nearly 70% of the respondents agreed with this statement, only 10% opposed it Nevertheless, only 15.7% of students indicated that they agreed with item 4 “I don’t pay heed to the comments I get in my ESP lesson in the class”, whereas more than 63% of them expressed the opposite attitude In other words, more than half of the participants don’t value the comments they get in class The results of items 4 and 5 could be taken to mean that students would rather get written feedback on their assignments than verbal feedback from their teachers during class This might be because they aren't good at listening and talking, because they have a history of being shy, or because they don't want to lose face To a certain degree, this explanation could be the cause Additionally, the sentence in Item 6 says that “I often give up and stop attempting to comprehend the more complex aspects of ESP”, which received the fourth highest mean (M = 3.63; SD = 99) partly contributes to the results that vocational students are not very highly motivated towards learning ESP It is seen that the majority of the subjects (65.1%) tend to stop learning ESP if they find it hard to understand, while only 13.8% of them showed their disagreement with this statement From the results, it's easy to see that since ESP is a hard subject with a lot of specialized vocabulary, it takes a lot of motivation on the part of the students to learn it In other words, they can only expect to do well at learning ESP if they are motivated On the contrary, they easily give up when dealing with problems during their study time Specifically, 38.3% of respondents offered replies that were indifferent to Item 1, which had the highest percentage of all of these issues They did not explicitly indicate that “I work so hard to study ESP” or that “I do not work hard to study ESP” In addition, the ratio of those who agreed and disagreed was almost the same These results provided support for the findings that the learners had a modest amount of motivational intensity for ESP learning Last but not least, the findings in “I put aside distractions and focus on my task while I'm learning ESP”, which had the lowest mean level (M = 2.78; SD

=.99), revealed that approximately half of the samples, or 42.9%, had a tendency to be distracted and not attentive to their work; however, less than one-fourth of them (23%) believed that they have a strong concentration in their tasks or assignments In a nutshell, the overall level of participants' intensity to acquire ESP is somewhere between moderate (3.0) and about halfway to the high level (4.0)

Learners’ desire to learn ESP

Table 4 2 Learners’ desire to learn ESP (n = 235)

Desire to learn ESP Level of desire

7 I have a tremendous desire to learn everything about ESP

8 I want to master ESP to the point that it comes naturally to me

9 I want to get as knowledgeable about

10 ESP is not a very important thing for me to learn (*)

11 I’m losing any desire I ever had to know ESP (*)

12 Honestly, I have absolutely no desire to study ESP (*)

Secondly, Table 4.2 shows the results related to the learners' desire to learn ESP, which was also used to evaluate the students' motivation All six items received high mean scores ranging from 3.00 to 4.03, and the participants' willingness to learn ESP was above the moderate level and almost at the high level, as shown by their mean score of 3.68 with a standard deviation of 1.06, which means that the students strongly agreed with all the statements Generally, the overall percentage of participants who had a strong desire to acquire ESP was 23.5%, while 40.6% of them had a somewhat high ambition to study ESP In all, around two-thirds of them had the desire to develop ESP to the greatest degree On average, 19.2% of the subjects expressed interest in learning ESP 16.8% of them, on the other hand, reported a low or very low degree of interest in learning ESP Only 2.8% of participants were of the opinion that they had no interest in acquiring ESP, which is a rather low percentage None of these six items had a mean lower than the moderate level, which is defined as 3.0, and item 8 had the most considerable mean score, which was 4.03 (SD = 99) The respondents' responses revealed that 77.1% of them agreed with the aforementioned viewpoint, while 9.3% of them did not agree with the item It is also the item for which the fewest number of respondents (13.6%) did not indicate whether they wished they were proficient in ESP or not

Further, the greatest level of agreement (76.2%) was found for item 7, "I have a tremendous desire to learn everything about ESP" (M = 3.98; SD =.84) It is interesting to note that while items 7 and 12 were framed in opposite ways, they both obtained a comparable proportion of replies indicating that they agree or strongly agree with the statement They were, respectively, 48.1 and 47.2; 28.1 and 26.4 It is possible to infer that learners' willingness to study ESP seems to be consistent Another remarkable aspect of the scale was item 11's reversal: "I’m losing any desire I ever had to know

ESP" The percentages of those who disagreed (40%) and those who agreed (37% each) are about equal This suggests that the learners' motivation to learn ESP will be readily lost if this emotional aspect, such as the instructor, course and difficult materials, assignments, classmates, curriculum, or learning environment, is negatively impacted in any way

The high degree of standard deviation is the last aspect of this scale that ought to be explored There were two items which had standard deviations that were higher than 1.0, and the average standard deviation of the six items (1.06) was likewise much higher than 1.0 It would imply that the students' desires to develop ESP are distinct from one another

Table 4 3 Attitudes towards learning ESP (n = 235)

Attitudes towards learning ESP Level of attitudes

Statements Mean Std Negative Neutral Positive deviation (%) (%) (%)

13 Learning ESP is quite beneficial 3.86 1.08 11 22.2 66.8

14 ESP is a very important part of the college curriculum

16 It’s a waste of time to learn ESP (*) 4.14 84 3 13.6 83.4

17 I would rather devote my attention to other subjects than ESP (*)

18 When I graduate, I will stop studying

ESP since I have no interest in it (*)

In addition to motivational intensity and the learners' desire, attitudes toward learning ESP were also studied to determine the level of motivation possessed by the students Table 4.3 thus demonstrates that the participants' attitudes toward acquiring ESP were virtually at a high level (M = 3.91; SD = 1.03) In general, based on the frequency of their replies, learners' attitudes toward ESP learning were positive Nearly three-quarters of the respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the overall item scale

In contrast, only 9.6% of individuals had unfavorable views toward the acquisition of ESP In other words, the majority of learners had a high level of attitude toward learning ESP The high mean levels of items such as 13 (M = 3.86): "Learning ESP is quite beneficial," 14 (M = 4.00): "ESP is a very important part of the college curriculum," and 15 (M = 3.60): "I enjoy learning ESP a lot" are evidence of this conclusion The results of the three items, on the other hand, are as follows: 16 (M 4.14) “It’s a waste of time to learn ESP”; 17 (M = 3.84) “I would rather devote my attention to other subjects than ESP”; and 18 (M = 4.03) “When I graduate, I will stop studying ESP since I have no interest in it” The fact that the means of these negative statements were higher than the means of the three positive statements showed that learners' attitudes are not positive enough to be thought of at a high level

More specifically, 84.3% and 83.4% of learners agreed or strongly agreed that ESP is a very important part of the college curriculum and that Learning ESP is a waste of time, respectively, for two opposing items, 14 (M = 4.00) and 16 (M = 4.14) From this result, it would be inferred that learners’ attitudes toward learning ESP tend to be rather stable Still, items 13 (M = 3.86) "Learning ESP is quite beneficial," and 17 (M = 3.84)

“I would rather devote my attention to other subjects than ESP” were also worded in both positive and negative ways This led to the conclusion that respondents always had the same thoughts on these two items since they gave the same percentage of positive attitudes (68.8% and 67.7%) for each Additionally, the high degree of the standard deviation of the four items (>1.0) would imply that the students' perspectives on ESP differ from one another

Table 4 4 Descriptive statistics of Motivation for learning ESP (n = 235)

Sub-constructs Mean Std deviation Level of motivation

As stated at the beginning of the section, the construct of motivation is made up of the three sub-constructs listed in order i.e., motivational intensity to learn ESP (M 3.44; SD = 1.03); desire to learn ESP (M = 3.68; SD = 1.06); and attitudes towards learning ESP (M = 3.91; SD = 1.03) Table 4.4, which provided the average mean scores (M = 3.68; SD = 1.06) for the three main sub-constructs of motivation, shows that the participants had a high level of motivation for learning ESP However, it is necessary to compare this overall mean score with level 4.0 on the five-point Linkert rating scales that the learners selected in the questionnaire to determine whether the mean is statistically significantly different from the accepted mean for high level (4.0) or not Thus, one sample t-test should be conducted on the participants' motivation for learning their ESP scores The sample mean (M = 3.68; SD = 1.06; p =.000