La justicia ordinaria

As pointed out in 3.1.3, motivation is likely to be influenced by the kinds of goals that are being pursued. While an emphasis on ability is likely to result in an ego orientation where achievement is perceived as innate and hard to influence, an emphasis on effort has been linked to a mastery orientation, characterised e.g. by a willingness to work hard and persistently, while not shying away from difficult tasks. Since mastery orientation is the form of goal orientation that has been found to correlate positively with success in school (Maehr & Yamaguchi, 2001:134; Ames & Archer, 1988:264; Salili et al., 2001:8), student orientations were compared to see if there was a link between proficiency and mastery orientation. Effort being the keystone of mastery orientation, the degree of mastery orientation was calculated based on the amount of effort the students reported that they put into English, specifically, into using English in class (questions 24 and 23, part 1), the estimated time they devoted to doing English homework (question 8, part 1) and the time and effort they put into English in general (question 10, part 2).

9.3.1 Overall comparison between NP and IB

During the time that the material for the present study was collected, the IB students inevitably had a lot more opportunities to use English than the NP students, both in speech and in writing. Still, as regards the English lessons in specific, the NP students reported that they used less English than the IB students, both for speaking in class (NP: 2.67, IB: 3.61, max 4; p=0.000) and for taking notes (NP: 2.51, IB: 3.91, max 4; p=0.000). This means that not only less time was allocated to English in NP, but also that during this restricted time, the NP students used English to a lesser extent than the IB students. Moreover, IB students reported that they put significantly more time and work into English in general (NP: 3.00, IB: 3.63, max 6; p = 0.016), and into English homework in particular than the NP students (NP: 1.67, IB: 2.88, max 5; p=0.000).

In terms of the students’ goal orientation, these results suggest a higher inclination towards mastery orientation in the IB group. This is an interpretation that is consistent with the diverging proficiency results of the two groups, the IB group being the one which showed the most improvement over time.

9.3.2 Comparison of the subgroups

Can any differences be discerned between the subgroups as to the effort they put into English? When it comes to speaking English in the English lessons, it turned out that all three subgroups showed the same pattern, with significantly more use of English among the IB students (p=0.013; 0.000; 0.000). In terms of taking notes in English, however, there was an interesting difference. Whereas the IB students in all three subgroups indicated that they took notes in English to about the same extent, there was a striking difference between subgroups for the NP students. In NP subgroups II and III, English was not only used significantly less than among the IB students in those subgroups (p=0.000; 0.000), it was also used significantly less than in NP subgroup I (p=0.003; 0.001).

When it comes to the time spent on English homework and the time and effort spent on English in general, in all three subgroups the IB students reported that they worked harder than the NP students. Nonetheless, since the differences are not statistically significant, the results may have arisen due to chance. The results for subgroups II and III, however, approach statistical significance (p=0.055; 0.065). In the students’ reports on English homework, the pattern with a higher amount of effort put in by the IB students was repeated. In this case, however, the differences in subgroups II (NP: 1.70, IB: 3.31) and III (NP: 1.77, IB: 2.85) were both statistically significant (p=0.000 and 0.026), while in subgroup I, they were not (NP: 1.56, IB: 2.56, max 5; p=0.053). In all, since the IB students in subgroups II and III in some respects claimed that they put more effort into English than the NP students, they can be said to have a somewhat higher degree of mastery orientation.

9.4 Affective factors

Positive affect can influence a person’s motivation by means of its favourable impact on self-efficacy, intrinsic motivation and goal orientation (see 3.1.4). Therefore, it is of interest to compare affect as reflected in the students’ responses to two of the questions, namely those concerning to what extent they had liked their English lessons in compulsory school (no. 6, part 1) and to what extent they liked their English lessons in upper secondary school (no. 7, part 1).

9.4.1 Overall comparison between NP and IB

The students’ responses reveal a difference in the way the two groups felt about their English lessons. As far as English lessons at compulsory school was concerned, the NP students reported that they had liked them significantly better than the IB students (NP: 4.53, IB: 3.63; p=0.007). However, when it came to English lessons in upper secondary school, the IB students reported that they were significantly more appreciative than the NP students (NP: 4.26, IB: 5.40; p=0.000). These responses can be expressed in another way, namely that the IB students liked their English lessons significantly better in upper secondary school (5.40) than they remembered liking them in compulsory school (3.63; p=0.000), whereas the NP students’ feelings towards their English lessons remained more or less the same. In the pursuit of motivational factors that can help explain the students’ proficiency, this is an interesting finding that links the progression of the IB students to their positive affect.

9.4.2 Comparison of the subgroups

A study of affect in the subgroups, however, reveals that their correlation with proficiency was not as straightforward as it seemed when comparing the groups as a whole. As regards compulsory school, the NP students in subgroups I and II were more positive as to what the English lessons had been like than the IB students. This tendency was not statistically significant, however (p=0.127; 0.082). In subgroup III, on the other hand, the responses of the two groups were more or less the same. In the case of the students’ feelings towards English lessons in upper secondary school, in subgroups I and II the IB students were significantly more positive than the NP students (p=0.006; 0.003), while in subgroup III the difference between the groups was much smaller. The findings can also be expressed another way, namely that while IB students in all three subgroups indicated that they had a similar liking of their English lessons at the upper secondary level, the NP students in subgroups I and II tended to be more negative towards their English lessons than those in subgroup III. While these findings do not explain the diverging proficiency results of the IB and NP students in subgroup III, they are interesting when considered in the light of the failure of the NP students in subgroups I and II to increase their use of low-frequency vocabulary.