The differences of attitudinal and motivational factors amongst students in Qatar and the relationship between these factors and their achievement in English language

This study investigated the relationship between attitudes and motivation, and English language achievement. It also illustrated the influence of sex (males & females) on the attitudes and motivation of students in Qatar. Two main null-hypotheses and sub null-hypotheses were formulated to answer the main research questions of the study. A quantitative approach was implemented in a questionnaire survey, followed by a qualitative study using focus group interviews in order to explore the students` answers in more depth and to cover various issues missed in the questionnaire. The eleven scales of the Attitude/Motivation Test Battery (AMTB) were adopted with slight adjustments to suit the present study. This instrument was chosen due to its established reliability and validity. In order to estimate population parameters, an independent t-test was used to test for differences between males and females. On the other hand, the Spearman correlation was used to determine the relationship between students’ achievement in English and their motivation and attitudes. The study confirms previous findings and contributes additional evidence to suggest that the socio-educational model is appropriate for a monolingual context like Qatar where English is officially regarded as a foreign language. Moreover, this study contributes to knowledge concerning language learning and confirms Gardner’s (2005, 2010, 2012) argument that if a researcher adapts the full AMTB and selects appropriate items, the findings will corroborate the predictions of the socio-educational model