Motivation to learn German as a foreign language: A systematic literature review

Motivation, which greatly affects the learning process in the context of foreign language teaching and learning, provides the willingness for learning a language, while on the other hand, it assumes a decisive role in language learning success. The subject of motivation, which has such an important place in foreign language learning, has been addressed in many studies, but the number of studies conducted on German as a foreign language has been limited. This study aims to make a general assessment by revealing how and on which topics German as a foreign language learning motivation has been researched, to determine current research trends, and to offer suggestions for future studies. In order to search for relevant studies for the purpose of the research, a systematic literature review analysis was conducted using the scientific databases Web of Science and Scopus. The keywords “Foreign Language Learning”, “German”, “Motivation”, and “Student” were used as search filters, and only articles and studies in German and English were included in this research. The PRISMA flow chart was used to determine suitable studies, and 51 articles were included in the research. The findings show that motivation studies on German as a foreign language are primarily based on the second language motivational self-system model, the number of studies has increased with the paradigm shift, quantitative research methods and surveys are mainly used as data collection techniques, German is intensively researched together with other languages, and the aim is to determine what increases and decreases motivation by considering motivation levels and factors more.