The correlations between the variables

Positive links between L2 demotivation and L2 vulnerability and the variables (H1) In order to test the first hypothesis (H1), which hypothesised the presence of positive links between L2 demotivation and L2 vulnerability and (a) the fixed language learning mindset; (b) L2 disappointment, and (c) overemphasising the teacher’s role, an analysis using Pearson’s correlation coefficient supported the hypothesised relationships and revealed strong positive correlations between the three variables that emerged in the qualitative data and the two variables: L2 demotivation and L2 vulnerability (see table 6).

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Table 6: Correlations between L2 demotivation and L2 vulnerability and psychological variables

Language mindset Teacher role perception Personlaity hardiness

Ideal L2 self L2 disappointment L2 demotivation L2 vulnerability

Language mindset .34** -.086** -.21** .30** .48** .40** Teacher’s role perception -.078** -.14** .56** .54** .54** Personality hardiness .46** -.17** -.36** -.34** Ideal L2 self .23** -.41** -.55** L2 disappointment .71** .65** L2 Demotivation .81** L2 vulnerability **_{p < .01.}

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Fixed language learning mindset (H1a)

First, in line with the qualitative data, the results revealed strong positive correlations between the two variables (L2 demotivation and L2 vulnerability) and the fixed language learning mindset (see table 6). This result is important for three reasons: (a) it established a strong link between fixed language learning mindset and L2

demotivation; (b) it supported the finding in the qualitative data that suggested a relationship between L2 demotivation and the fixed language learning mindset; and (c) it echoed the results in the previous studies that employed Dweck’s (1999) theoretical framework and found that strong fixed language learning mindsets can affect L2 motivation (e.g. Lou and Noels, 2016; Mercer & Ryan, 2010, 2012; Ryan & Mercer, 2011).

The strong positive relationship between the fixed mindset and L2 vulnerability is consistent with the findings of the qualitative data that revealed how the two mindsets created different psychological worlds that guided the learners’ analysis of failure and setbacks, leading to different interpretations of these difficulties and different patterns of vulnerability or resilience. The relationship between these two variables will be further discussed below when the differences between resilient and vulnerable language learners are investigated (H5).

Perception of the teacher’s role (H1b)

Considering the Saudi teacher’s role in the classroom that extensively focuses on the grammatical rules and rarely exposes the students to communicative situations, the findings of the qualitative study showed that the learners, who overemphasised the teacher’s role and link achievement of their goal (achieving fluency) mainly to having a competent teacher, were more demotivated than the learners who minimised that role.

In line with the qualitative data, the results of the quantitative data revealed strong positive correlations between the two variables (L2 demotivation and L2 vulnerability) and perception of the teacher role, and thus supporting the hypothesised positive relationship between overemphasising the teacher’s role and the two variables (see table 6). This result seems to provide an explanation of the unexpected results of the recent studies that found that teacher’s direct behaviours were the least influential of all the demotivators or found them to be not strong demotivators (e.g. Kikuchi, 2011; Kim, 2009; Li & Zhou, 2013). It seems that it is not teachers’ behaviours that

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influence the learner’s motivation. Thus, language teachers only demotivate learners who overemphasise their role and perceive them as a major facilitator or obstructor in the language learning process.

The aim of the qualitative study was not to look at what teacher-related factors demotivated language learners. Rather, it attempted to explore why English teachers could influence, motivate, demotivate, and remotivate some language learners, while other learners were less affected or even not affected by negative teacher-related factors. The findings in the qualitative data revealed that Saudi learners’ diverse perceptions of the teacher role played a role in the mechanism of demotivation. When being taught by a less-than- ideal teacher, only language learners who overemphasised their role and perceived this role as a major factor that can facilitate or obstruct successful language learning were vulnerable to experience L2 demotivation or L2 vulnerability to

developing learned helplessness. They were also the only learners who linked recovery from demotivation to a competent teacher. Although all the language learners perceived the teacher role as being an important factor that can facilitate successful language learning, not all of them believed that the English teacher can obstruct this process.

L2 disappointment (H1c)

Although L2 disappointment about the achieved oral proficiency level emerged in the qualitative data as a major factor that had a negative impact on the language learners’ motivation, it is worth noting that the qualitative study neither simply established a link between Saudi students’ L2 demotivation and L2 proficiency level nor it simply blames the Saudi English teachers for their students’ low proficiency level. Rather, it looked at how the Saudi students perceived their low proficiency level and explored if this perception influenced their motivation level differently. Indeed, the qualitative data showed that it is not the low proficiency level that functioned as a demotivating factor for Saudi learners of English. Rather, it was the way these students felt about this factor, the way they interpreted it, and the way they perceived it, and thus a relationship between feeling of disappointment and L2 demotivation was assumed.

As table 6 shows, the strongest positive correlations were identified between L2 disappointment and the two variables (L2 demotivation and L2 vulnerability), thus supporting the hypothesised relationship between feeling disappointed about the achieved oral proficiency and being demotivated or developing learned helplessness. This result also echoed Kim’s (2015) findings that the conflict between the students’

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desire to use English for communication and the immediate need to pass the standardised tests was the main source of learners’ demotivation.

Negative links between L2 demotivation and L2 vulnerability and other variables (H2)

Ideal l2 self (H2a)

The qualitative results showed that the ideal L2 self can have a motivational and remotivational power, while lacking the ability to create a positive ideal L2 self can have a demotivational power, thus suggesting that lower ideal L2 self was associated with higher level of demotivation. The quantitative analysis gave more evidence and revealed a strong negative correlation between ideal L2 self and both L2 demotivation and L2 vulnerability, thus supported the hypothesised negative

relationship between ideal L2 self and the two variables (see table 6). The strong negative relationship identified here between ideal L2 self and L2 demotivation, also revealed that higher ability to create a positive ideal L2 self is associated with decreased level of L2 demotivation. This finding highlighted the motivational power of the ideal L2 self and echoed the findings of many quantitative studies that found that the ideal L2 self is a stronger predictor of language learners’ motivation in various contexts (e.g. Al- Shehri, 2009; Csizer & Kormos, 2009; Dornyei & Chan, 2013; Islam, Lamb, Chambers, 2013; Kim, 2012; MacIntyre, MacKinnon, & Clément, 2009; Magid, 2013; Ryan, 2009; Taguchi et al., 2009; Yashima, 2009;). Although ample research has validated the role of the construct of ideal L2 self in L2 motivation and confirmed its key role in

motivating language learners, little research has examined its role in L2 demotivation.

Personality hardiness (H2b)

Table 6 shows that moderate negative correlations were identified between personality hardiness and the two variables (L2 demotivation and L2 vulnerability), thus confirming the hypothesised negative relationship and the results of the qualitative data that suggested that personality hardiness helped some participants to be resilient in the face of demotivators and difficulties. The relationship that was identified between L2 vulnerability and personality hardiness also echoed the findings of previous studies conducted in the resilience research.

The items of the L2 vulnerability scale can be treated as negatively oriented items that aim at measuring L2 resilience. Therefore, the negative moderate relationship between L2 vulnerability and personality hardiness reflect a moderate positive

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findings of many studies in the resilience research literature that examined various essential characteristics that enable individuals to be resilient and found that hardiness was one of the characteristics that functioned as protective factors against adversities (e.g. Connor & Davidson, 2003; Earvolino-Ramirez, 2007; Waysman, Schwarzwald & Solomon, 2001; Windle, 2011). It is also consistent with previous research that has put hardiness as the basis for resilience (Bartone, 2006; Bonanno 2004; Maddi, 2005; Maddi, 2013).

Connections between the language learning mindset and other variables (H3)

The qualitative data showed that many of the factors that have influenced L2 motivation, were also influenced by the language learning mindset. In other words, the qualitative data showed that the diverse language learner’s feelings, responses,

explanations of the motivational and demotivational factors were to a large extent the function of the language learning mindset. In order to test the third hypothesis (H3) if the fixed language learning mindset positively correlates with (a) L2 disappointment, and (b) overemphasis of the teacher’s role, and negatively with (c) the ideal L2 self and (d) personality hardiness, an analysis using Pearson’s correlation coefficient confirmed the hypothesised relationships and revealed associations between the independent variables that emerged in the qualitative data and the fixed language learning mindset (see table 6).

L2 disappointment (H3a)

Table 6 shows that a moderate positive correlation was identified between the fixed language learning mindset and L2 disappointment, thus confirming the

hypothesised positive relationship between both variables (H3a). This result also supports the finding in the qualitative data that suggested that the fixed language learning mindset associates positively with the disappointment about the achieved oral proficiency level, while the growth language learning mindset associates with the satisfaction about the oral proficiency level and perceiving it as being a normal part of the leaning process.

Perception of the teacher’s role (H3b)

A moderate positive correlation was also identified between the language learning mindset and the perception of the teacher’s role (see table 6), thus confirming the hypothesised relationship between the fixed language learning mindset and

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is a contradiction between the fixed mindset language learner’s belief in the importance of a natural fixed ability for successful language learning and the belief that the English teacher is the primary factor that can facilitate or obstruct successful language learning. The qualitative data showed that some fixed mindset language learners attribute others’ successful language learning to a natural ability and believe that they do not have that ability. Believing that they lack the ability to learn a second language, they attribute their own academic success or failure in the English classroom to the teacher’s role. The moderate relationship between fixed language learning mindset and overemphasising the teacher’s role might have three different explanations: (a) fixed mindset learners do believe that they lack the natural ability to learn a second language and do believe that the teacher can be the only primary factor that can facilitate their own success or failure inside the English classroom; (b) they believe that they lack they ability but they do not believe that the teacher can facilitate successful language learning, so they are merely overemphasising the teacher’s role trying to attribute their failure to another perceivably uncontrollable factor, the teacher; or (c) both factors (perception of the teacher’s role and the language learning mindset) are correlating because they measure the learners’ mindsets’ fixedness and the way they perceive the malleability of different factors.

Ideal L2 self (H3c)

The qualitative data showed that, in some cases, the motivational power of the ideal L2 self was not demonstrated because some fixed mindset language learners could visualise a positive ideal L2 self but found it difficult to achieve in the future. The qualitative data also showed that fixed mindset language learners were less able to create a positive ideal L2 self, thus a negative relationship between the two variables was assumed. A weak negative correlation was identified between ideal L2 self and fixed language learning mindset (see table 6). This weak correlation between ideal L2 self and fixed language learning mindset indicated to me that although fixed mindset language learner might lack the ability to create an ideal L2 self, having a fixed

language learning mindset is not necessarily associated with lacking the ability to create ideal L2 self, and that the growth language learning mindset does not necessarily

associate with the ability to create a positive ideal L2 self. In other words, this finding suggests that even when a language learner can visualise the characteristics that she ideally likes to possess and creates a positive ideal L2 self as a fluent speaker of English, she might also believe that that natural ability is essential to achieve fluency

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(fixed language learning mindset). In this case, the demotivational power of the fixed language learning mindset (which devalues effort and believes that achieving fluency is uncontrollable) might contradict with the motivational power of the ideal L2 self and obstruct the demonstration of its power.

Personality hardiness (H3d)

The analysis revealed a negligible negative correlation between the fixed language learning mindset and personality hardiness (see table 6). This result confirms the hypothesised lack of relationship between the language learning mindset and the hardy personality, suggesting that having a low hardy personality does not necessarily associates with the existence of a fixed language learning mindset. This finding also support the qualitative results that showed that even fixed mindset language learners expressed some characteristics of a hardy personality.The moderate negative

relationship that was identified between the personality hardiness and (L2 demotivation and L2 vulnerability) earlier and the lack of a relationship between the language

learning mindset and the personality hardiness indicated to me that the motivational and remotivational power of the personality hardiness might be obstructed by the existence of a fixed language learning mindset.

Summary

The correlations that the quantitative results revealed between the variables that emerged in the qualitative data, have initially supported most of the qualitative results and clarified some of the results. The confirmed hypotheses provided more evidence to the importance of the role that the language learning mindset play in the mechanism of L2 demotivation. The next task is to compare between the fixed mindset language learners and the growth mindset language learners and explore the main differences between the two groups.

7.3.3 A comparison between fixed mindset language learners