Semi-structured Interviews

The semi-structured interviews research method has been widely used in applied linguistics research. Dörnyei describes semi-structured interviews as ―a compromise between two extremes: Although there is a set of pre-prepared guiding questions and prompts, the format is open-ended – the interviewer provides guidance and direction, but he or she is also keen to follow up interesting developments and to let the interviewee elaborate in certain issues in an exploratory manner‖ (2013, p 236). The semi-structured interview can be appropriately used when the researcher has a deep understanding of the domain or phenomenon under study and is able to prepare and develop wide questions about the topic under investigation prior to the conducting of the interview. Those questions prepared by the researcher are meant to allow them to follow in depth and investigate the domain in question (Dörnyei, 2007). The areas which I aimed to cover by employing the semi-structured interviews in this study were: 1- What are the factors that motivate L1 Arabic learners of English at a UK university at the start of their university course to learn English as a Second Language? Is there any difference in Arab students‘ motivation in learning English depending on their varied backgrounds? 2- Does the Arab students‘ motivation change during their university course?

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In this chapter, I have discussed the rationale behind the methodology employed to answer the questions addressed in this research study. The chapter begins by presenting the main research questions, aims and objectives: 1 – What are the factors that motivate L1 Arab learners of English at a UK university at the start of their university course to learn English as a second language? Is there any difference in Arab students‘ motivation in learning English depending on their backgrounds? 2 – How are different motivational factors related to students‘ examination performance? 3 – Does the Arab students‘ motivation change during their university course? If there is any change, how does it relate to students‘ second language proficiency level? The research questions aimed to address gaps in the literature about the relationship between L2 motivation and proficiency level as well as possible differences in L2 motivation depending on the students‘ backgrounds. In addition, the research questions addressed the recent questions raised in the literature about the dynamic nature of L2 motivation during the process of learning a target language and its influence on the rate of improvement.

In order to answer the questions addressed, I combined both Dörnyei‘s ‗incentive values‘ (1994) and Gardner‘s ‗pragmatic reasons‘ (1982) for learning English. In addition, elements from AMTB (Attitudes/Motivation Test Battery) (1985) and Dörnyei and Ushioda‘s (2013) research study were adopted to cover the most important themes in the literature about the role of L2 motivation in learning a target language. Data were collected at two different stages, at the beginning and at the end of the English course for comparison. This helped in understanding the relationship between L2 motivation and proficiency level and in unveiling any change in students‘ motivation and its influence on their rate of improving. Previous research studies have focused on investigating the more immediate dynamic nature of motivation, such as Gardner‘s study monitoring motivation levels in the classroom several times a lesson (1985). To the best of my knowledge, no study has yet compared motivation and exam results at two different stages spanning several months, which is unique to my study.

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L2 motivation research studies such as Gardner (1982; 1985), Dörnyei (1994), and Dörnyei and Ushioda (2013) measured the influence of motivation on the proficiency level either by collecting data at end of the English course or at the beginning of it and compared them to the final exam results. This led to the common belief in the literature that the role of L2 motivation was the ultimate key factor in determining students‘ proficiency level.

This was followed by presenting the rationale for employing the mixed method in this research study. Two research paradigms, qualitative research represented by the interviews and quantitative research represented by the questionnaires, were mixed to reflect the complex nature of L2 motivation as a research topic. This method allowed me as a researcher to utilize the data obtained from the first phase (questionnaire) and proceed to the qualitative phase (interviews) with a better knowledge of the participants‘ motivational factors and their varied backgrounds. More specifically, applying the mixed method to this research helped in obtaining data which are as rich as possible (Tashakkori and Teddlie, 1998, cited in Ivankova et al, 2006). The recent focus of L2 motivation research has been for results to be replicable, reliable and generalizable. The mixed method research approach has been deemed appropriate to meet such criteria and as such has been commonly used in L2 motivation research studies (Williams and Burden, 1997; Dörnyei, 2001).

After developing research aims and design, the research questions were developed. This was followed by developing the research setting, informants and instrumentation which led to ethical considerations followed by a pilot study. The pilot study allowed me as researcher to improve my data collection tools. The findings of the pilot study suggested some of the necessary and timely changes in the layout, wording, clarity, appearance and instructions of the questionnaire. After collecting the main data, Mean, percentages and frequency of the items were used to conduct both descriptive

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and inferential analysis of the questionnaire. On the other hand, data collected using interviews were analyzed using the content method.

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Chapter 6: Data Analysis (Findings: Data Presentation and