Toward the Development of a Model of Political and Socio-Economic Factors Impacting the Motivation of Iranian EFL learners to Learn English

The present study was an attempt to identify a model of the political and socio-economic factors influencing Iranian EFL learners’ motivation to learn English. To achieve this goal, 20 EFL learners studying at the Iran Language Institute in Darab, Iran were invited for an interview session and a questionnaire was then designed based on the interview findings. Piloted testing of the survey was conducted among 221 EFL learners. Exploratory factor analysis was then run to identify the underlying factors and as a result, eight factors proved to have high loadings. Subsequently, the final 26-item questionnaire was distributed among 375 EFL learners and they were asked to rate the items on a Likert scale. Analyzing responses revealed the most influencing factor as ‘emigration’ and the least important one as ‘attitudes toward English and its utilitarian values’. To confirm the factor structure of the instrument, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used. The goodness of fit measures was utilized to see whether the proposed model fitted the data. The obtained fit indices including GFI, RMSEA, SRMR, NFI, Chi-square/df proved to be acceptable suggesting the fit of the model.