Integrative Motivation as an Essential Determinant of Achievement: A Case of EFL High School Students

Motivation is believed to be one very significant construct that imposes positive impact and enhances the learning in any second language learning context. Two types of motivation are known as the instrumental and integrative according to Gardner and Lambert’s original work on attitudes and motivation. Any learner may have a motivation type based on his/her learning goals and the context they are studying in. In EFL contexts, it is assumed that the learners have more instrumental motivation and that their achievement may be affected by their motivation type. Therefore, this survey was planned to investigate the performances of 95 Iranian EFL students at the 3 grade of high school to firstly determine which motivation type dominates among rd them and also to find out the motivation type of high achievers and finally to determine whether there is significant difference on the achievement of these two groups over their English Final-year Achievement Test. The sample of this study was selected using cluster sampling method and took a standard motivation test to determine their motivation types. Then they took English Final-year Achievement Test. The analysis of the results revealed that the dominant motivation type among high school students was the instrumental orientation (58.9%), high achievers in this study were mostly motivated integratively (92.9%) and finally students with integrative motivation significantly outperformed those who were motivated instrumentally.