The Dynamic Nature of Demotivation in English Language Learning: A Comparative Study of High School, College, and University Students

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the dynamic nature of demotivation in English language learning. To this end, the present research recruited students from high school, college, and university to investigate whether the darker side of motivation interacts with students' educational level. Using an adopted questionnaire designed by Kikuchi (2011), this study employed both descriptive and inferential statistics, chosen according to the nature of the research objectives. In descriptive statistics, means and standard deviations were calculated to determine the rank and order of the factors that had debilitating effects on English learners' motivation. Moreover, a one-way MANOVA was performed to determine whether there were differences in students' demotivation across educational levels. The findings revealed that the mean scores for all six demotivating factors were higher for college and high school students than university students. Additionally, high school students' mean scores for demotivating factors such as class environment, class materials, and lack of interest were higher than those of college students. On the contrary, college students' mean scores for class characteristics and experiences of failure-related demotivation were higher than those of high school students. The one-way MANOVA results showed significant differences in demotivating factors across students with different educational levels, leading to the rejection of the null hypothesis. The scores for high school and college EFL students on all six demotivating factors were significantly higher than those of university students. Furthermore, no significant difference was found between high school and college EFL students on all six demotivating factors. These findings implicate teachers, learners, and policymakers to foster a learning environment beneficial for English language learning.