Multiple goal orientations and foreign language anxiety

This investigation examines Thai college students’ motivational goals for learning the English language. Thai student volunteers (N = 1387) from two types of educational institutions participated in this survey study which combined measures of goal orientations based on two different goal constructs and motivation models. Results of two-step cluster analysis, correlation analysis, and analysis of variance of multiple goal orientations with gender and institution showed several significant findings. Females were significantly more “academic” oriented, more instrumental and less socio-cultural than males toward English language learning. Compared to university students, vocational college students were significantly more “superiority” oriented, more performance oriented toward the purpose of achievement and more identification oriented toward emulating an English speaking foreigner. “Academic” and “superiority” orientations were significantly and positively associated with foreign language anxiety whereas socio-cultural orientation was significantly and negatively associated with foreign language anxiety. Females indicated significantly higher levels of foreign language anxiety than males. Role socialization theory and self-esteem theory may explain the results of gender and institutional differences in the motivational orientations of Thai college students.