Factors Influencing Students’ Motivation to Transfer Learning from EAP Courses to Disciplinary Courses in a US University Context

With English-for-academic-purposes (EAP) teaching, it is expected that the skills students develop in an EAP course will transfer to the students' disciplinary courses.For this transfer to be maximized, it is important that students are motivated to transfer EAP learning.However, transfer motivation has received little attention in research on EAP education, so there is limited information regarding influential factors.To address this gap, this study investigated whether EAP students' transfer motivation was influenced by factors linked to transfer motivation in previous research in and outside EAP education: students' transfer-related expectations and beliefs, perceptions of learning, and perceptions of EAP course design.The participants were 313 first-year undergraduate students at a US university; these students were non-native English speakers and were enrolled in EAP courses.Data were gathered through a questionnaire survey, and statistical analyses revealed that the students' transfer motivation was influenced primarily by their transfer-related beliefs and expectations and to a lesser degree by their perceptions that the EAP course was similar to target contexts.A practical implication is that to promote EAP students' transfer motivation, instructors should help students develop transferconducive beliefs and expectations and raise their awareness of similarities between their EAP course and disciplinary courses.