Students’ Attitudes of Motivational Strategies in EFL Secondary School Contexts in Iraqi Kurdistan

Abstract

Motivation plays a vital role in the second language learning process (Gardner, 1985), urging many researchers to look into strategies for generating and maintaining students' motivation in language teaching classes. The current study aims to investigate students' attitudes towards motivational strategies in EFL secondary school contexts in Iraqi Kurdistan. The design of the study followed a quantitative approach. The study's primary tool for collecting data was a questionnaire. Three hundred and ninety-one students (221 females and 170 males) from eleven public secondary schools in Shaqlawa district participated in the study. The data was analyzed through SPSS. The study's results demonstrated that Iraqi-Kurdistan secondary school students have positive attitudes towards the motivational strategies employed by their teachers. Moreover, the findings revealed that the teacher's behaviour scale is the motivational scale with the highest level of agreement among students, followed by the goals scale. In contrast, second language-related values and group work emerged as the motivational scales with the lowest level of agreement.