The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of motivation and attitude in learning English for cadets in the Chinese Military Academy (CMA), Taiwan, R.O.C. This is a descriptive study intended to determine whether cadets in CMA are motivated more instrumentally or integratively when learning English and its effect on their English achievement.
In particular the study explores the relationships between English achievement, orientation, attitude, and motivational intensity to determine whether or not there is a significant difference among cadets who successfully completed vocational schools, high schools, and those who did not complete a program of formal schooling or graduated from other schools.
Analysis of the research findings lead to the conclusions that most cadets are motivated to learn English more instrumentally and there is no significant difference in English achievement among instrumentally motivated cadets, integratively motivated cadets, and cadets who are described as balanced in terms of their motivational attributes.
The summary of findings concludes that there are significant relationships between the cadets' English achievement and motivational intensity and attitude relative to their educational backgrounds. In addition, it was found that strategies learned prior to attending CMA impacted on the motivational attributes demonstrated by the participants. Further, it was shown that attitude (association with English) is the best predictor of English achievement for this group of learners.
