Eri Hashimoto Dr. Richard Schmidt Dr.

James Dean Brown Scholarly Paper December 2009 Factor Analysis of Three State Motivation Theories Abstract

There are many theories in second language (L2) motivation studies, yet they seem to all be measuring similar things. The objective of this paper is to examine the relationships between three major motivation theories in the L2 field: flow theory (Csikszentmihalyi, 1991), selfdetermination theory (SDT) (Deci & Ryan, 1985), and the stimulus appraisal model (Schumann, 1997). In order to conduct this study, I administered a motivation questionnaire to 206 native Japanese-speaking students in five English communication classes at a national college of technology in Japan. The questionnaire was administered after two different tasks. One task was a speaking and listening pair work activity. The second task was an individual writing task. A principal component factor analysis was conducted to investigate the relationships between eleven variables derived from the three motivation theories. To identify whether the results of the principal components analysis were affected by the type of task, results from Task A and Task B were compared. The results showed a two component matrix. The first component contained high loadings for variables that motivate students from their inner selves and the second component included variables that motivate students from external sources. Key words: motivation, principal component matrix, self-determination theory, flow theory, stimulus appraisal model

Hashimoto, E. (2009). Factor Analysis of Three State Motivation Theories. A Scholarly Paper Submitted to The Graduate Division of The University of Hawaii at Mnoa. Advisors: Dr. Richard Schmidt and Dr. James Dean Brown