Self-Determination Theory And Motivational Orientations Of Arabic Learners: A Principal Component Analysis

Recognizing the value of motivation in language learning, some scholars attempt to gaininsights into this abstract psychological state by exploring models of motivationdeveloped by educational and social psychologists. The present study extends an earlierresearch on motivational orientations for language learning based on the Self-Determination theory. Unlike the previous study which involved the learning of Frenchin a bilingual English-French setting, this study explored the motivational orientations ofMuslim learners of Arabic. A 45-item questionnaire was administered to 228 students ina tertiary education institution in Malaysia where Arabic is a requirement. With a total of28 statistically reliable items, the Intrinsic Motivation-Knowledge, Intrinsic Motivation-Accomplishment, Extrinsic Motivation-Identified Regulation, Amotivation and ReligiousMotivation components accounted for 64.6% of the variance. Religious motivationemerged as a new statistical subdimension of motivational orientation as Muslim learnersin the study showed strong religious motives for learning Arabic, a psychological statewhich practitioners would want to capitalize on and sustain alongside with otherorientations. However, further research needs to be done to study the relationshipbetween the intensity and types of motivational orientations, efforts and learningoutcomes, and to compare and contrast the motivational orientations of learners of sacredlanguages such as Arabic and Hebrew in three different settings: highly religious setting,less religious and non-religious affiliated purposes.