Questionnaire

A questionnaire was developed for this study based on my pilot study as well as literature on learning motivation. It is used in the research to tap into students’ self-assessment of English proficiency and their motivational constructs. The questionnaire consists of four sections, namely self-assessment of English proficiency (20 items), academic self-efficacy (5 items), learning motivation (8 items), and self-regulated learning strategies (10 items) (see Appendix A for the

questionnaire). A 6-point Likert scale is used in the questionnaire, with 1 being “Strongly

Disagree” and 6 being “Strongly Agree”. In this subsection, I introduce the structure and content of each subsection in the questionnaire. The information about questionnaire administration is provided later in the section of data collection procedures.

3.3.3.1. Self-assessment

The self-assessment contains 20 can-do statements about the four subskills, listening, reading, speaking, and writing, with reference to students’ activities in content courses or major courses (see Appendix A for the self-assessment items). The self-assessment of English

proficiency in the context of content courses was developed based on existing literature concerning self-assessment and informal interviews with ESL students at the university for typical English use in their content courses. According to the admission policy for international applicants at the university, the minimum requirement for English proficiency is set as 71 for the TOEFL iBT or 6 for the IELTS (Admission Office, 2014). The corresponding proficiency level on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) is B1 to B2 (ETS, 2006; Taylor & Jones, 2006). The corresponding proficiency level on the ACTFL is Intermediate High (Slagter, Surface, & Watson, 2010). Considering the fact that all of the admitted ESL students had higher TOEFL or IELTS score than required, I mainly reviewed the self-assessment descriptors at higher proficiency levels in the European Language Portfolio (ELP) (B2-C2), Association of Language Testers in Europe (ALTE, Levels 4 and 5), and ACTFL (Intermediate high to Advanced-high) and developed the items for the self-assessment in this study. All the items were piloted with a small number of students from the target population and reviewed by experts in Applied Linguistics at Iowa State University.

The questionnaire items were designed to assess the self-assessment construct in context by including in each item classroom activities such as reading textbooks, understanding lectures, taking notes, making oral presentations, writing reports, engaging in discussions, and so on. An example item for reading is “I can fully understand a lecture, presentation and/or demonstration

in English in and outside my classes.” The student’s requested response could range from 1

(Strongly disagree) through 6 (Strongly agree). Therefore, a high score on this section of the questionnaire was interpreted as higher level of the subskills described in each item.

3.3.3.2. Motivation

The learning motivation items were intended to measure both intrinsic and extrinsic learning motivation. Intrinsic motivation or intrinsic goal orientation reflects the idea that the causes of students’ engagement in activities are mainly for personal interest, curiosity, and intention to master certain skills, while extrinsic motivation or extrinsic goal orientation shows that students’ participatory purposes are to achieve good grades or impress others. Like the items about academic self-efficacy, this motivation construct was included in this study to account for the potential influence of the EPT performance on learning motivation as well as the influence of learning motivation on ESL students’ academic achievement. The items were adapted from the Intrinsic and Extrinsic Goal Orientation scales in the Motivated Strategies for Learning

Questionnaire (MSLQ), which was originally developed by Pintrich and his colleagues in 1980s and 1990s to measure college students’ motivation and learning strategies (Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, & McKeachie, 1993). The reason for adapting the items from the MLSQ is that it has been recognized as a reliable measure of its targeting constructs, namely motivation and self- regulated learning strategies, and these constructs have been used in a large number of studies as predictors of college students’ academic performance (Credé & Philips, 2011). In addition, the

MSLQ is found to be useful in a variety of educational settings and has been used in different countries.

The MSLQ consists of 81 items in two broad sections: motivation scales and learning strategy scales. The motivation scales in the MSLQ include three components: Value

components, which consist of Intrinsic goal orientation (4 items), Extrinsic goal orientation (4 items), Task value (6 items), Expectancy components, which consist of Control of learning beliefs (4 items), Self-efficacy for learning and performance (8 items), and Affective component or Test anxiety (5 items). The learning strategy scales include two general strategies: Cognitive and metacognitive strategies, which contained Rehearsal (four items), Elaboration (six items), Organization (four items), Critical thinking (five items), Metacognitive self-regulation (12 items), and Resources management strategies, which contained Time/study environmental management (eight items), Effort regulation (four items), Peer learning (three items), and Help seeking (four items).

The motivational sections in the MSLQ were useful and appropriate to this study because of their content relevance to university-level learning at U.S. universities and their documented uses with good psychometric quality (Credé & Philips, 2011; Pintrich, et al. 1993). The Intrinsic and Extrinsic goal orientation in the value components of the motivation scales are particularly relevant to this study as goal has been a major component in various motivational theories, and goal-orientation theory is particularly about a dichotomy of achievement goals in educational context, namely mastery (intrinsic) orientation and performance (extrinsic) orientation (Pintrich, 2000). In addition, goal orientation has been found to affect academic achievement (Diseth, 2011). An example of intrinsic goal orientation item is In my content courses, I prefer course

Agree). An example of extrinsic goal orientation item is If I can, I want to get better grades than

most of the other students in my major course(s) (1 Strongly Disagree to 6 Strongly Agree).

3.3.3.2. Academic self-efficacy

Academic self-efficacy refers to students’ perceptions or self-appraisal of their ability to accomplish academic work. Research has established that academic self-efficacy can influence students’ learning motivation and affect students’ academic performance (Richardson et al., 2012). The items of academic self-efficacy used in this study were adapted from the subscale of Academic self-efficacy in the Patterns of Adaptive Learning Scales (PALS) (Midgley et al., 2000) and the Self-efficacy for learning and performance scale in the MSLQ (Pintrich et al., 1993). All the statements were rephrased to reflect the academic contexts at the university. Five statements about students’ expectation and self-efficacy were included in the survey. An

example item is I believe I am able to receive excellent grades in my major course(s) at this

University if I work hard. (1 Strongly Disagree to 6 Strongly Agree).

3.3.3.4. Self-regulated learning strategies

Self-regulated learning (SRL) is defined as “the degree to which students are

metacognitively, motivationally, behaviorally active participants in their own learning process” (Zimmerman, 2008, p.167). Dörnyei and Skehan (2003) posited that self-regulation and

motivation are “inextricably bound together because they both concern the antecedents of

increased academic achievement” (p. 612). The items assessing self-regulated learning strategies were adapted from the statements on strategies for the regulation of academic behavior in the MSLQ, mainly from the subscales of Time and study environment, Effort regulation, and Help seeking.

In this study, I did not include the cognitive and metacognitive strategies in the MSLQ because they are self-regulation of cognition and are very specific to learning activities. Instead, I am interested in how students organized and managed their study in general, and thus I focused on the aspects of Time and study environment, Effort regulation, and Help seeking. An example item of time and study environment is I have a regular time set aside for studying for my major

course(s). An example item of effort regulation is When I study for my major course(s), I often quit before I finish what I planned to do because I feel bored or lazy (1 Strongly Disagree to 6

Strongly Agree). An example item of help seeking is When I can’t understand the material in my

major course(s), I ask other students or friends for help (1 Strongly Disagree to 6 Strongly

Agree).