Category Archives: Motivation To Learn
Teaching Styles, Students’ Motivation, and Grit as Correlates of Students’ Performance in English
A research paper presented as a conference paper and subsequently published in an academic journal
Teaching Styles, Students’ Motivation, and Grit as Correlates of Students’ Performance in English
Massuline Antonio D. Ligaya and Marie Charmaine P. Igwe
Business, Education, Social Sciences, and Technology, Vol. 1, No. 1, July 2025
DOI 10.69478/BEST2025v1n1a006.
Research Summary
Factors associated with both teachers and students influence the teaching and learning of English as a second or foreign language. This study examined several of these factors by investigating the relationships between teachers’ teaching styles, students’ motivation to learn English, students’ grit, and students’ English performance at a university in South Korea. The study conceptualized teaching style through four dimensions—teacher-student interaction, decision-making negotiation, teaching structuring, and behavioral control—and examined students’ motivation in terms of instrumental and integrative orientations. Grit was understood as students’ passion and perseverance in pursuing their goals despite challenges and setbacks.
The study employed a descriptive survey research design. Participants were students enrolled in mandatory English courses at a South Korean university and their foreign English teachers. The study invited two classes from each of 22 English teachers to participate, resulting in 385 student respondents from a potential pool of more than 600 students. Data were collected online through Google Forms using questionnaire items adopted from previously validated instruments. Students evaluated their own motivation and grit as well as the teaching styles demonstrated by their English teachers.
Unlike studies relying exclusively on students’ self-reported perceptions of their language ability, this research assessed English performance through a 25-item proficiency test covering five areas: vocabulary, correct grammar form, answering questions, combining sentences, and word sequencing. Frequency analysis and mean computation described the variables, while correlation analysis determined the relationships between English performance and teaching style, motivation, and grit. Statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS.
The results categorized the students’ overall English performance as moderately proficient, with an aggregated mean score of 2.32. Their strongest areas were vocabulary and answering questions, both classified as proficient. Correct grammar form and word sequencing fell within the moderately proficient range, while combining sentences emerged as their weakest area, with a mean score of 1.45 and a classification of less proficient. The results therefore suggested that although students demonstrated competence in selected aspects of English, important gaps remained, particularly in sentence construction.
Students generally perceived their teachers as frequently demonstrating all four dimensions of teaching style. Teaching structuring received the highest mean rating (4.45), followed by behavioral control (4.41), decision-making negotiation (4.35), and teacher-student interaction (4.32). The overall teaching-style mean of 4.38 indicated that these teaching behaviors were frequently observed across the English classes included in the study.
The findings also showed that students possessed a high overall level of motivation to learn English, although they were more integratively motivated than instrumentally motivated. Integrative motivation registered a mean of 4.27 compared with 3.84 for instrumental motivation. This indicated a stronger orientation toward learning English for engagement with English-speaking communities and cultures than toward purely practical benefits such as academic requirements, employment, or career advancement. The students’ mean grit score of 3.01, meanwhile, was interpreted as a moderate level of grit, with variation among students in their perseverance and passion toward their goals.
Correlation analysis revealed that all four dimensions of teaching style were significantly and positively associated with students’ English performance, although the relationships were weak. Teacher-student interaction correlated with English performance at r = .135, decision-making negotiation at r = .185, teaching structuring at r = .168, and behavioral control at r = .162. When the dimensions were combined, overall teaching style showed a significant positive correlation of r = .175 (p = .001) with students’ English performance. Among the teaching-style dimensions, decision-making negotiation exhibited the strongest relationship with English performance.
The two forms of motivation produced different results. Integrative motivation was significantly and positively correlated with English performance (r = .207, p < .001), the strongest positive correlation among the principal variables reported in the study. Instrumental motivation, however, was not significantly related to English performance (r = −.069, p = .176). When the study combined instrumental and integrative motivation into overall motivation, the resulting relationship with English performance was also not statistically significant. Thus, the findings suggested that motivation type, rather than motivation as a single overall construct, was relevant to students’ English performance in this sample.
One of the study’s most unexpected findings concerned grit. Students’ grit was significantly but negatively correlated with their English performance (r = −.106, p = .038). In other words, within this particular sample, higher grit scores were associated with slightly lower English-performance scores. This result contrasted with previous research cited in the paper reporting positive relationships among grit, motivation, and English-language performance. Given the weak magnitude and unexpected direction of the relationship, the study recommended further examination through replication, particularly to clarify the role of grit in English-language learning.
Overall, the study demonstrated that teacher-related and student-related factors were associated with English performance in different ways. Effective teaching-style dimensions showed consistent positive relationships with performance, while integrative—but not instrumental—motivation was positively associated with students’ English proficiency. The unexpected negative relationship involving grit highlighted the need for further investigation rather than assuming that perseverance necessarily translates directly into higher language-test performance.
The findings also carried practical implications for English-language instruction. Because students performed relatively well in vocabulary and answering questions but struggled particularly with combining sentences, the paper recommended interventions to strengthen grammatical and sentence-construction skills. Teachers were also encouraged to continue emphasizing effective classroom practices involving interaction, decision-making, lesson structuring, and behavioral management, while incorporating activities that strengthen students’ integrative motivation to learn English.
Research Contribution
The study contributes to research on English-language performance by examining teacher and learner variables within the same analytical framework. Rather than treating English achievement solely as a function of students’ abilities or motivation, it examined how teaching style, motivational orientation, and grit related individually to measured English performance among university students in South Korea.
A particularly useful contribution is the disaggregation of teaching style into four observable dimensions. The finding that teacher-student interaction, decision-making negotiation, teaching structuring, and behavioral control were all significantly and positively associated with English performance suggests that classroom teaching practices may be relevant across both the interpersonal and organizational dimensions of instruction.
The distinction between integrative and instrumental motivation is likewise significant. Although the students reported high levels of both, only integrative motivation demonstrated a significant positive relationship with English performance. This finding reinforces the value of examining different motivational orientations separately rather than treating motivation as a single undifferentiated construct.
Finally, the unexpected negative association between grit and English performance raises a question worthy of further investigation. Rather than providing definitive evidence that grit impairs language learning, the finding identifies an area requiring replication and more detailed examination of the conditions under which perseverance and sustained effort contribute to—or fail to translate into—English-language achievement. The paper itself explicitly recommends replication to ascertain this result.
Keywords: grit; motivation to learn English; students’ performance in English; teaching styles
Full Text
The full text of this publication is available upon request. Researchers, educators, students, and other interested readers who wish to obtain a copy may contact the author through this website or by email at madligaya@gmail.com.
Students’ Performance in English: Effects of Teachers’ Leadership Behavior and Students’ Motivation
A research paper published in a Scopus-indexed journal
Massuline Antonio D. Ligaya and Marie Charmaine P. Igwe
Journal of Education and Learning (EduLearn), Vol. 19, No. 1, February 2025, pp. 91–102
DOI: 10.11591/edulearn.v19i1.21680
Research Summary
Teachers do more than deliver instruction; they also exercise leadership in guiding, motivating, and managing students throughout the learning process. In foreign-language education, this leadership role may be particularly important because successful language learning requires active student participation and sustained motivation. This study investigated how English teachers’ leadership behavior relates to students’ performance in English and examined whether students’ instrumental and integrative motivation mediate that relationship.
Teacher leadership was examined through two dimensions derived from the Leadership Behavior Description Questionnaire (LBDQ): initiating structure, which emphasizes task organization and goal attainment, and consideration, which emphasizes interpersonal relationships, respect, trust, and concern for students. Motivation toward learning English was examined through instrumental motivation, in which the language is learned for practical or external benefits, and integrative motivation, associated with interest in communicating with and understanding people from other linguistic and cultural backgrounds.
The study employed a descriptive survey design involving 911 university students in South Korea who were enrolled in mandatory English courses across different academic departments. Students evaluated their teachers’ leadership behavior and their own motivation toward learning English. Leadership items were drawn from the LBDQ, while motivation measures were adapted from Gardner’s Attitude/Motivation Test Battery (AMTB). Students’ English performance was assessed using a 25-item grammar proficiency test covering vocabulary, correct grammatical form, answering questions, combining sentences, and word sequencing. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation and regression analyses, and parallel mediation analysis using Hayes’ PROCESS procedure.
Students perceived their English teachers as demonstrating high levels of both leadership behaviors, although consideration was more strongly manifested than initiating structure. The mean for initiating structure was 4.06, while the pattern of responses for consideration showed that nearly 88% of students rated their teachers high or very high on this dimension. Students also reported high levels of both forms of motivation, with integrative motivation (M = 3.96) exceeding instrumental motivation (M = 3.55).
Performance on the English test was generally satisfactory. Of the 911 students, 542 obtained scores of 12 or higher, while 369 scored 11 or below. Analysis of specific areas showed that students were proficient in vocabulary, correct grammatical form, and answering questions but only moderately proficient in combining sentences and word sequencing.
Correlation analyses showed that both initiating structure and consideration were positively related to students’ instrumental and integrative motivation and to English performance. Integrative motivation was also positively and significantly correlated with English performance, whereas instrumental motivation was not significantly correlated with performance at the bivariate level.
The regression and mediation analyses revealed a more differentiated pattern. When the two leadership dimensions were considered simultaneously, consideration—but not initiating structure—significantly predicted students’ English performance. Consideration also significantly predicted both instrumental and integrative motivation. When leadership behavior and both forms of motivation were entered together, consideration and integrative motivation had positive significant coefficients, whereas instrumental motivation had a significant negative coefficient.
Most importantly, the mediation analysis showed that neither instrumental nor integrative motivation significantly mediated the relationship between initiating structure and English performance. In contrast, both forms of motivation significantly mediated the relationship between consideration and students’ English performance. The direct effect of consideration remained significant after the mediators were included, indicating partial rather than complete mediation.
Overall, the findings emphasize the potential importance of the relational dimension of teacher leadership in language learning. Students may benefit when English teachers combine pedagogical competence with leadership behaviors characterized by rapport, respect, accessibility, and concern for students. The findings further suggest that students’ reasons for learning English form part of the pathway through which this people-oriented leadership behavior relates to their academic performance.
Research Contribution
The study contributes to research on teacher leadership and second/foreign-language learning by integrating teacher leadership behavior, student motivation, and measured English performance within a mediation framework. Rather than examining teacher and learner variables independently, it investigates a possible mechanism linking them: teacher leadership → student motivation → English performance. Its finding that consideration, rather than initiating structure, was associated with performance through both instrumental and integrative motivational pathways highlights the potential importance of relationship-oriented teacher leadership in the foreign-language classroom. The study also provides a foundation for further research examining how teacher behavior and different forms of learner motivation jointly contribute to English-language achievement.
Keywords: teacher leadership, consideration, initiating structure, instrumental motivation, integrative motivation, English performance, mediation, South Korea
Full Text
The full text of this publication is available upon request. Researchers, educators, students, and other interested readers who wish to obtain a copy may contact the author through this website or by email at madligaya@gmail.com.
