1. Introduction
With the expanding of international exchanges, an increasing number of international students come to China to pursue higher education, and some of them learn Chinese as a second language (CSL). Although they may vary in age, gender, mother tongue, etc., an individual variable that greatly influences their Chinese learning is their motivation, for motivation is considered to be a factor that significantly affects language learning success ( Dörnyei, 2005: p. 65 ). Motivation is a driving force that might influence the second language (L2) learning. Since to some degree, it determines how much effort a learner would make during the language learning process ( Chen, Du, Wang, & Yang, 2022 ). In the teaching practice, in particular, understanding the students’ motivation can help teachers design corresponding teaching content, arrange suitable activities, choose appropriate teaching materials, which are of great significance to improve teaching efficiency ( Ding, 2014 ).
2. Literature Review
2.1. Motivation
Motivation is an important individual factor in L2 research. It is considered as one of the major determinants of L2 learning achievement ( Dörnyei, 1994 ). In the 1950s, Gardner and Lambert initiated the study of motivation ( Al-Hoorie, 2017 ). Since then, motivation has experienced three phrases: 1) the social-psychological period, 2) the cognitive-situated period, and 3) the process-oriented period ( Dörnyei, 2005: pp. 66-67 ) or the current period ( Al-Hoorie, 2017 ). Meanwhile, motivation has been examined and discussed from different perspectives in L2 research. Gardner and Lambert (1959) first distinguished integrative motivation from instrumental motivation ( Crookes & Schmidt, 1991 ). Gardner and Lambert (1972) examined motivation from a social-psychological point of view and explored two types of motivation: the integrative and the instrumental. In L2 learning, the integrative motivation shows the learners’ interest in another culture, while the instrumental motivation is for some practical advantages, e.g., getting a better job. Another classic dichotomy of motivation type is the intrinsic and the extrinsic ( Deci & Ryan, 1985 ). Learners perform intrinsic motivation behaviors to gain internal rewards, e.g., the joy and satisfaction of doing some activity; while learners’ extrinsic motivation behaviors are about receiving some extrinsic reward such as achieving good grades, or avoiding being punished ( Dörnyei, 1994 ). Intrinsic motivation is believed to lead to higher quality and more sustained performance than extrinsic motivation ( Chambers 1999: p. 52 ).
Although the classification of motivation varies, the most discussed two classic dichotomies are integrative vs. instrumental and intrinsic vs. extrinsic and their extended frameworks. To some extent, the two dimensions of categorization are generally considered as corresponding accordingly, i.e., the integrative motivation corresponds to the intrinsic and the instrumental motivation parallels the extrinsic ( Gao, Zhao, Cheng, & Zhou, 2003 ).
Gardner (2007) further divides motivation, from perspectives of socio-educational and educational psychology of L2 acquisition, into language learning motivation and classroom learning motivation. Language learning motivation is a general, relatively stable individual characteristic in language learning, whereas classroom learning motivation focuses on the learners’ perception of the task and would be influenced by factors in the language class ( Gardner, 2007 ).
Dörnyei (1994) puts forwards a list of 30 strategies to motivate L2 learners’ motivation from three broad levels as language level, learner level and learning situation level, which correspond to the three aspects of the L2 learning process, i.e., L2, L2 learner, and L2 learning environment.
2.2. Studies of CSL Motivation Types in China
In China, language learner motivation was first studied in the field of learning English as a foreign language (EFL). Many research studies on EFL motivation introduced and employed the classic motivation theories developed by foreign researchers (e.g., Gao, Cheng, Zhao, & Zhou, 2003 ; Gao, Zhao, Cheng, & Zhou, 2003 ; Wen, 2001 ). However, due to their different contexts, Chinese EFL students’ motivation types do not always correspond to the western classic models, therefore EFL motivation types are widely explored in the Chinese context. For example, Gao, Zhao, Cheng and Zhou (2003) conducted a large scale questionnaire survey on 2278 Chinese college undergraduates’ English learning, and found seven motivation types: intrinsic interest, immediate achievement, learning situation, going abroad, social responsibility, individual development and information medium.
The acceleration of the Chinese internationalization has prompted CSL motivation research. Research on Chinese learning motivation was based on the experiences and achievements of English learning motivation studies ( Gao, 2013 ). Likewise, most of the studies conducted on international students’ CSL motivation in China applied the theoretical frameworks of the western classic models and their extended models ( Li & Wei, 2015 ). Ding carried out a series of studies on the Chinese language learners’ motivation types during their study in China. In one study, three motivation types were found: environment attraction, others’ recommendation and individual needs, among which the environment attraction is the international learners’ main motivation type to study Chinese in China ( Ding, 2014 ). Ding (2016) further reported another five types: career, opportunity, interests, experience and important others’ influence. The mean scores of the former two, i.e., career motivation and opportunity motivation are higher than the latter three, indicating that the learners attached more importance to instrumental motivations.
Li and Wei (2015) conducted a questionnaire survey on a group of foreign learners of preparatory Chinese intensive education studying in Central Normal University, China, and seven motivation types were extracted: internal-external motivation, personal development motivation, teacher factor motivation, social factor motivation, learning situation motivation, immigration motivation and examination motivation. Wang (2011) used a self-designed questionnaire to investigate 160 foreign students from Central Asia studying in Xinjiang University, China, and the result from the 134 valid questionnaires revealed six motivation dimensions: interest motivation, development-oriented motivation, internal motivation, learning situation motivation, expectancy of learning ability and absence of motivation. Shi and Gao (2017) carried out an investigation with valid data from 1025 students on CSL learning motivation of international students in universities in Beijing, China, and found out three motivation types: instrumental (i.e., extrinsic), integrative (i.e., intrinsic) and absence of motivation. On the whole, the students revealed a high motivation level in CSL learning, with the instrumental motivation ranked at the highest, followed by the integrative motivation which was also at a high level, while the type of absence of motivation was at a quite low level.
Obviously, the previous studies reported various types of foreign learners’ Chinese learning motivation in different contexts. However, the multifarious classifications of motivation need further investigation to add more evidence to the research area. Therefore, the present study tries to explore the motivation types perceived by some international students in Chinese universities, aiming at providing new reference for the field. To this end, the present study addresses two research questions:
RQ1. What motivation types are shown by the CSL international students in learning Chinese?
RQ2. What are the levels of the CSL international students’ Chinese learning motivation?
3. Research Methods
3.1. Participants
The participants in the current study were international students from two universities in northern and eastern China. The questionnaire was delivered via Wenjuanxing, an online questionnaire survey platform in China. Data were collected by using convenience sampling. Only degree students were chosen for the questionnaire survey. 60 students responded to the questionnaire, among whom, one student rated all items with “5”, which was considered invalid, therefore, the effective data analysis was based on the rest 59 participants’ answers (N = 59). Among them, 37 were male and 22 were female. 31 were undergraduates and 28 were graduate students. Their majors were related to education and clinical medicine. The youngest five of them were under 20 years old, the oldest one belonged to 41 - 45 years old group, while most of them fell into 21 - 25 age bracket (See Table 1).
3.2. Instruments
The questionnaire in the present study was adapted from previous studies (e.g., Liu & Chen, 2012 ; Wang, 2011 ) and took Dörnyei’s (1994) three-level classification as reference. First, two international students accepted an interview on their Chinese learning motivation. The questionnaire was then modified based on the interview results to suit the participants’ actual Chinese learning situation. There are two parts of the questionnaire. The first part is about the demographic features including gender, age, present major, nationality, native language, student type, years of learning Chinese, etc. The second part contains 29 items about
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Table 1. Demographic information of the participants.
CSL motivation rated on a 5-point Likert scale, from 1 (never my situation) to 5 (totally my situation). The questionnaire ends with an open-ended question, “What suggestions do you have for learning and teaching Chinese?”, asking for the participants’ practical advice on Chinese learning and teaching. To ensure the participants’ fully understanding of the questionnaire, the instructions and statements were presented in Chinese and corresponding English translation, and arranged on a random order.
3.3. Data Analysis Methods
The collected data were processed by using SPSS 27.0 software. Descriptive analysis and exploratory factor analysis were performed to answer the research questions.
4. Results and Discussion
4.1. CSL Students’ Motivation Types in Learning Chinese
To answer RQ1, an exploratory factor analysis was carried out. When performing exploratory factor analysis, principle components and varimax rotation method were chosen, and the factor loadings were set to 0.40. The result showed that KMO = .770, Bartlett’s χ2 = 1179.908, df = 406, p = .000, indicating the scale was suitable for an exploratory factor analysis. Finally, six factors emerged from the data, accounting for 70.514% of the total variance (see Table 2). It was found that only two items were loaded on Factor 3, which in the strict sense cannot be classified as a factor, but with a further examining, they could not be included in any other factors, therefore, Factor 3 was retained as a separate one (see Table 3).
In addition, the Cronbach alpha coefficient for the questionnaire was .928 (a = .928), indicating a high reliability index. Due to the complexity of L2 acquisition process, the Alpha value of a scale is suggested to be higher than 0.60 ( Dörnyei, 2007: p. 207 ). As shown in Table 2, the internal consistency coefficient a for each factor varied between .678 and .933. The results indicate that the scale was both reliable and valid.
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Table 2. Reliability, eigenvalue, variance and cumulative variance for the factors.
Table 3 lists the loadings of each item, and the factors are labeled.
As presented in Table 3, The first factor contains 13 items. It is labelled as “Intrinsic interest”. There are 3 aspects of learning motivation in it. One is related
to learners’ interest in Chinese language, as in Item 25 “I find the pronunciation and characters of Chinese very interesting”. Additionally, CSL students are interested in the history of China (Item 29), they like Chinese language very much (Item 1), want to learn Chinese (Item 4) and want to learn multiple languages (Item 19). Furthermore, their future career plan is related to Chinese (Item 23), which also shows their interest in Chinese. Hence, in Item 26, being good at Chinese contributes to personal development.
The second aspect concerns the learner’s satisfaction of learning Chinese. They learn Chinese because “the progress in the learning process” (Item 18) and to “experience new things through Chinese” (Item 17) give them a lot of satisfaction, and they learn Chinese to satisfy their interest (Item 14).
The third aspect is associated with the Chinese language itself. Learning Chinese helps when experiencing the cultural activities (Item 28) and in international communication (Item 24). Moreover, the need for comprehensive ability of listening, speaking, reading and writing skills indicates that they want to have a good command of Chinese (Item 16).
Taken together, the 13 items in Factor 1 all relate to intrinsic interest. This motivation type corresponds to Gardner and Lambert’s (1959) integrative motivation, which emphasizes the interest of the language itself. And it also corresponds to the intrinsic motivation which stresses the satisfaction of learning achievement. The results are in line with Ding’s (2016) study. However, it partly agrees with the findings of Wang’s (2011) study, in which interest motivation (e.g., being interested in China, Chines culture and language) and internal motivation (e.g., satisfying interest) are two separate factors. This may be explained by the different samples of the studies. In Wang’s study, the students were from Central Asia, while in the present study, the students came from Asia, Africa, Europe and South America. As discussed in the literature review above, the broader motivation type found in the present study verifies the corresponding relation between integrative motivation and intrinsic motivation.
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Table 3. Summary of the factor loadings.
Factor 2 is labelled as “Learning situation”. Its five items are about the determinants of the learners’ enthusiasm for learning Chinese. The level of their teacher’s attention to them (Item 11), the teaching methods (Item 9) and their adaptation as well as acceptance of the teaching methods (Item 15), the content of the class (Item 12) and the teaching materials (Item 10) all describe their learning situations in class. This motivation is supported by many previous studies (e.g., Liu & Chen, 2012 ; Wang, 2011 ). Learning in class plays an important role in language learning in China. For example, the degree of teachers’ attention, the content of the class, teaching methods and materials, and the students’ adaptation of the teaching methods tend to have a great impact on the students’ emotions of learning.
Factor 3 encompasses two items: they learned Chinese under the influence of their friends (Item 22), and/or out of the demands and expectations of their family (Item 21). Both items show that they are influenced by other people who are important to them. Hence this factor is labelled as “Others’ influence”. This result echoes Ding’s (2016) findings which reported important others’ influence motivation.
Factor 4 is classified as “Personal achievement”. The three items in it all belong to instrumental motivation. For the international students, learning Chinese is “to find a good job in the future” (Item 3), “to have a good income” (Item 13), and “for a better life” (Item 5). All participants in the present study are degree students, who will be awarded an academic degree upon graduation. Learning Chinese well and the experience of studying in China will be beneficial if they plan to find a job in China or engage in work related to Chinese. The importance of instrumental motivation to L2 learning has been widely discussed in previous studies (e.g., Liu & Chen, 2012 ; Shi & Gao, 2017 ).
Factor 5 is labelled as “Deep understanding”. Learning Chinese to better understand Chinese people’s life (Item 6) and to help traveling in China (Item 27) all show the students’ willingness to understand Chinese people’s life and to visit different places in China. An interesting finding lies in Item 20, “I learned Chinese in preparation for my further study in a Chinese university”, it seems that this item belongs to Factor 4, namely, “Personal achievement”, as is categorized in Wang’s (2011) study. Actually, knowing the language of the country where they will be studying will help them adapt to the new environment and integrate into the learning community.
Three items fall into Factor 6, in which the first two items show their hope to “speak fluent Chinese” (Item 8) and “understand and use Chinese characters” (Item 7), and the third item expresses their great affection for Chinese culture (Item 2). As is seen from Table 3, the first two items loaded far higher than the third item in this group, so it is s labelled as “Language anticipation”. Most participants in the present study came from South Asia, Europe and Africa, where languages and writing systems are different from Chinese characters. The uniqueness of Chinese ideograms is attractive to international students, especially Indo-European students ( Ding, 2016 ).
According to Gardner’s classification, in general, intrinsic interest, deep understanding and language anticipation can be seen as integrative motivation; while personal achievement motivation can be regarded as instrumental motivation.
4.2. Levels of the CSL Students’ Chinese Learning Motivation
To answer Q2, descriptive analysis was performed to analyze the mean scores and standard deviations of the overall level of the participants’ Chinese learning motivation and the levels of the six types.
Table 4 presents the mean scores of the overall motivation level and the level of each factor. The mean score of the overall level is 3.82 (M = 3.82, SD = .65), indicating a high motivation level of the participants. The students’ motivation intensity can be divided into three categories: low motivation (mean value < 2.5), medium motivation (2.5 ≤ mean value < 3.5) and high motivation (mean value ≥ 3.5) ( Ding, 2015b ).
Among the six motivation dimensions, Factor 6 “Language anticipation” achieves the highest mean score (M = 4.34, SD = .74). The result reflects the students’ keen on Chinese culture, and expectation to speak fluent Chinese, understand and use Chinese characters. This finding is confirmed in the open-ended question attached to the questionnaire, i.e., “What suggestions do you have for learning and teaching Chinese?” Most students believed that talking with native speakers is the best way to improve Chinese skills, e.g., finding a language partner or participating in cultural exchange activities. One student expected the teachers to introduce Chinese culture in an interesting way so that they can understand more easily. Another student said that developing appropriate study habits can help learn Chinese characters, for instance, one can use some apps to learn new words.
Dörnyei (1994) suggests, one of the language level strategies to motivate language learners is to promote student to contact with L2 speakers by arranging meetings with them or organizing trips to L2 community. In other words, learners should seek every chance to practice L2. In addition, at the learning situation level, a strategy to motivate learners is to increase students’ interest and involvement in the task, e.g., adapting tasks to the students’ interests ( Dörnyei, 1994 ).
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Table 4. Descriptive information about the motivation factors
Factor 5 “Deep understanding” ranks at the second highest mean level (M = 4.07, SD = .85). This motivation type shows students’ interest in both Chinese people’s life and different places in China. In the open-ended question asking about the learning and teaching suggestions, one student wrote that “I expect all Chinese teachers to help us interact with local Chinese students for our better communication skills.” Another student expressed similar request, “I recommend Chinese teachers to help us in interacting with Chinese students.” Apparently, they have the desire to communicate with Chinese students. Communicating with locals offers an opportunity to understand Chinese people’ life as well as practice language skills.
Factor 1 “Intrinsic interest” ranks at the third highest motivation level (M = 4.02, SD = .83). It is related to learners’ interest in L2 and inner satisfaction in learning. Learners with intrinsic interest motivation focus on the learning itself and will gain happiness, satisfaction and the sense of achievement from L2 learning ( Wang, 2011 ).
Factor 2 “Learning situation” (M = 3.79, SD = .90) is found to be the fourth highest motivation type. The result is supported by Chen’s (2013) , and Liu & Chen’s (2012) findings that the learning situation motivation scored at a high level. This shows the CSL students high requirements for teachers, teaching materials and teaching methods. When answering the open-ended question, a student wrote “I recommend Chinese teachers to have a good interaction with us.” Through teacher-student interactions, students can not only pay attention to the teaching process, but also feel the teachers’ attention.
The next motivation type with high mean value is Factor 4 “Personal achievement” (M = 3.37, SD = 1.02). As an instrumental motivation, it is also an important motivation type of CFL students. This finding is in line with Liu & Chen’s (2012) research, which reported a high instrumental motivation level of the Central Asia students’ CSL learning in China. For international students, Chinese is not only a language but also a useful tool in job-hunting and career development.
Factor 3 “Others’ influence” is at the lowest motivation level (M = 2.19, SD = 1.14). Although the students’ decision to study in China may be influenced by their friends or family, their learning of Chinese is either out of their own decision or at the request of the syllabuses. This finding is in consistent with Ding’s (2015a) study that investigated the motivational changes of a group of South Korean overseas students’ in learning Chinese, and found that the “important others’ influence” motivation kept at the low level before and after the students came to China.
It is noted that nowadays, the advances of technology facilitate a combined language learning, therefore, there is a blending of integrative and instrumental motivations ( Dörnyei, 2005: p. 97 ).
5. Conclusion and Implications
The present study investigated international students’ Chinese learning motivation types via an online questionnaire survey. Exploratory factor analysis identified six motivation types: i) intrinsic interest, ii) learning situation, iii) others’ influence, iv) personal achievement, v) deep understanding and, vi) language anticipation.
The results also revealed that in general, the students’ overall motivation was at a high level. Among the six motivation types, the integrative motivations, including language anticipation, deep understanding and intrinsic interest were among the top three motivation types followed by learning situation motivation, which ranked the fourth high. Others’ influence motivation, as an instrumental motivation, ranked at a low motivation level.
It was found in the current study that most international students had both integrative and instrumental motivations to learn Chinese. The results support many previous studies. International students not only like Chinese language and culture, but also hope to integrate into Chinese society as soon as possible, and want to understand more and experience Chinese culture ( Chen, 2003 ). Besides, their Chinese language ability will be helpful to their career and professional development.
The findings of present study provide implications for CSL teaching and learning.
In CSL teaching, teachers’ clear understanding of students’ learning motivation is helpful in designing teaching content, arranging teaching plans and applying teaching methods suitable for the students’ actual situations. When teaching Chinese characters, for example, it is suggested that attention should be paid to introducing Chinese cultural elements, such as explaining Chinese history and culture, in order to maintain students’ learning motivation.
Liu and Chen (2012) suggest educators to stimulate and cultivate CSL students’ learning motivation, so that they may have the desire to learn Chinese and keep their interest in learning. Similarly, it is suggested that the teaching materials be compiled to attract students’ interests so as to achieve better teaching effects.
For the students’ part, if their motivation is mainly related to the cultural interest, they can participant in cultural activities to understand Chinese language, culture and history, such as experiencing Chinese festival culture, traveling to different places, and taste traditional Chinese food. Through these activities, they may have a deeper understanding of Chinese language and the culture it contains. For those students whose motivation is mainly instrumental, they can take the advantage of learning Chinese in the natural acquisition environment, e.g., to communicate in Chinese with native Chinese speakers, which will improve their acknowledge of Chinese and the listening as well as speaker skills.
6. Limitations and Recommendations
There are some limitations of the present study. First, the sample size is relatively small which might affect the generalization of the results. Further research is suggested to a larger sample size in the data collection session.
Second, the questionnaire used in this study is adapted from the previous studies and modified according to the situation of the participants, although its reliability and validity are acceptable, a pilot study is suggested for verification before conducting the main study.
Finally, an open-ended question is set at the end of the questionnaire to ask for the participants’ suggestions for Chinese learning and teaching. But this question cannot completely probe into the students’ ideas. In further research, an interview is suggested to collect qualitative data to triangulate the quantitative results.
Acknowledgements
This research is supported by The Key Anhui Humanities and Social Sciences Research Project for Universities (Grant No. SK2020A0034); by The Key Anhui Social Scientific Research Plan Project for Universities (Grant No. 2022AH050545); by The Scientific Research Project in Anhui University of Finance and Economics (Grant No. ACKYB21021); and by Teaching and Research Project in Anhui University of Finance and Economics (Grant No. acjyyb2022078 & No. acjyyb2022085).