The relationship between student motivation and learning achievements from a sociocultural perspective a case study of the police university

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES  LE HUONG HOA THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STUDENT MOTIVATION AND LEARNING ACHIEVEMENTS FROM A SOCIOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE: A CASE STUDY OF THE POLICE UNIVERSITY A THESIS SUBMITTED IN TOTAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY HANOI- 2015 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES  LE HUONG HOA THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STUDENT MOTIVATION AND LEARNING ACHIEVEMENTS FROM A SOCIOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE: A CASE STUDY OF THE POLICE UNIVERSITY (Mối quan hệ động kết học tập sinh viên dựa quan điểm lý thuyết văn hóa xã hội qua kết nghiên cứu trường Đại học CSND) Field: Language Teaching Methodolody Code:62.14.01.11 Supervisors Dr Vu Thi Phuong Anh Assoc Prof Dr Le Hung Tien HANOI- 2015 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I certify my authorship of the submitted thesis entitled THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STUDENT MOTIVATION AND LEARNING ACHIEVEMENTS FROM A SOCIOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE: A CASE STUDY OF THE POLICE UNIVERSITY In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis Hanoi, 2015 Le Huong Hoa i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express deep gratitude to my two supervisors Dr Vu Thi Phuong Anh and Assoc Prof Dr Le Hung Tien, for their valuable suggestions, guidance and encouragement throughout the course of this work, for their generosity in giving their time and their constant willingness to help me with my thesis I am also extremely thankful to Assoc Prof Dr Le Van Canh for his knowledgeable suggestions, support, understanding and kindness without which I would not have finished this thesis I am greatly indebted to my colleagues in the English Department of the People’s Police University for their ceaseless support and patience, and for creating favorable conditions for me to my research Last but not least, I owe my deepest gratitude to my parents, my husband and my daughter who helped me endure many difficult times during the process of this study Without their constant love and encouragement, the completion of this study would not have been possible ii ABSTRACT Among the factors influencing students’ studies, motivation is considered to be one of the most important reasons for different achievement levels The purposes of this study were (i) to find out the students' levels of motivation to study English, (ii) to identify the sociocultural factors influencing that motivation and (iii) to investigate the relationship between students' motivation and their achievement The subjects were 509 first-year students at the People’s Police University (PPU) The instruments used for data collection were questionnaires and focus group interviews The data from the returned questionnaires was statistically analyzed using the SPSS program to derive percentages, frequencies, means, standard deviations, as well as to perform exploratory factor analysis and multiple linear regression Findings from this study indicated that the majority of the students were motivated and had a positive attitude toward learning English; however, their reasons for learning English were task-oriented and more instrumental in nature with utilitarian purposes such as passing the exams rather than studying for pleasure or simply to broaden their knowledge Students' motivation and their English learning achievement were strongly and positively correlated with each other (p=.000