A Mixed-methods Study of Demotivating Factors in Business English Majors in China

Conducting a survey research on demotivating factors in business English majors can enrich the theoretical research findings on demotivation and meanwhile help to explore effective methods to enhance the students’ learning motivation. This study explores the construct of demotivating factors in business English majors in a Chinese university, the dynamic patterns of those demotivating factors, and the contextual characteristics of the dynamic patterns. Data from 335 business English undergraduates collected through various methods, including a questionnaire and follow-up in-depth group interviews with the participants, were quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed. A demotivation test battery of business English majors was developed, in which a sorting item was used to determine whether a business English major had experienced obvious demotivation. It was found that demotivation was prevalent among the participants, and that five factors in the demotivating system (i.e., teachers, aptitudes, learning materials, learning strategies and environments) were responsible for the demotivation, in which the construct of the five demotivating factors was a fractal. The significance of these five factors varied across different years of the participants’ study, among which aptitudes and learning strategies did not result in statistically significant dynamics among the participants across different years, whereas teachers, learning materials, and environments did. Further, it was determined that these dynamics were related to the changes in the students’ learning psychological peculiarities and their specific learning contexts across different years. These findings have implications for business English teaching in China but may be extended to business English teaching in other countries.