Exploring the Effect of English Language Learning Apps on Iranian EFL students’ motivation and educational Achievement

The aim of this research was to investigate the educational effect of a pedagogical application called “GAJ” on the motivation as well as educational achievement of Persian six-grade students in central Persia. The research was quasi-experimental using pre-test post-test design. The sampling consisted of all the students in the educational year 2015. The students’ average age was 14.5 and they were all studying in both public and private schools. From this population, 50 students were randomly selected 25 of which were assigned to the control group and another 25 to the experimental group. For two months, the control group was exposed to the traditional method of English language teaching whereas the experimental group was exposed to the educational application. To gather the data, Bernard Warner’s motivation questionnaire was used with the reliability coefficient of 0.73 as well as English tests of educational achievement made by the researchers. To measure the reliability of educational achievement tests, Alpha Cronbach was calculated and turned out to be 0.75 for the pre-test and 0.71 for the post-test. The data was analyzed using analysis of covariance. Results indicated that the application had a positive effect on motivation as well as the educational achievement of students in the English course.