”Mielestäni on hyvää yleissivistystä osata muitakin kieliä kuin omaa äidinkieltään.” : kvantitatiivinen tutkimus suomalaisten perusopetuksen yläkoulun oppilaiden vieraan kielen oppimismotivaatiosta

This PhD thesis explores the L2 motivation of Finnish lower secondary education students, aiming at investigating its connections to students’ language choices. The study consists of four sub studies in which the motivations for students’ language choices and non-choices, their L2 motivational profiles, factors predicting their current L2 self-concept, and the connections between their motivation, grades in language studies and future study plans after basic education have been studied. The study fills the gap in the research on L2 motivation of Finnish comprehensive school students and adds latent profile analysis to the research methods in the discipline. The study is methodologically a quantitative study based on a large-scale (N = 1206) survey and the data have been analyzed statistically. In addition to descriptive statistical analyses, a latent profile analysis and a logistic regression analysis have been made and a structure equation model has been built. The results show that Finnish students choose optional languages because they want to, their parents choose for them, or the students find the language as obligatory (English). Students do not choose languages because the language is not offered at school, no language group is formed, or the students do not want or manage to study more languages. The study also shows that the younger the student, the more uncertain the language choice (usually made by others) is. Among students, five different motivational profiles can be found: the most motivated (39 %), averagely motivated with low anxiety (29 %), averagely motivated (18 %), the least motivated (8 %) and students with high anxiety (6 %). The largest group of the students belonged to the most motivated. The investigation of the L2 motivation of Finnish comprehensive school students shows that the biggest differences in their L2 motivational profiles are on the language learner level especially in language class anxiety, actual L2 self-concept, the cognitive motivational orientation and dimensions related to the teacher and teaching. In addition, grades and out-of-school factors like parents, peers and society predict students’ current L2-self-concept. The study also informs about the connections between students’ motivational profiles, grades and future study plans after basic education. The more motivated the student is, the higher the grade they feel they need to intend to continue to general upper secondary education instead of vocational education.