Students’ Motivation to Learn English as a Foreign Language in the Context of Saudi Arabian Learners

Motivation is the major contributor to the students’ learning English as a second language. However, varying reasons have been suggested by different researchers and theorists to explain the reasons and dimensions of this motivation. Therefore, the study aimed to evaluate the motivation to learn English as a foreign language (EFL) among 157 Saudi Arabian university students. The instrument used for the analysis was a modified version of the motivation scale developed by Wen (1997), which measures motivation based on six subscales: integrative, instrumental, effort, valence, expectation, and ability. In addition, students’ motivation was compared among students with different English language levels using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) on six motivation subscales. The results of the MANOVA revealed that there was no significant difference among students of different levels of English knowledge when each level was compared separately. Nevertheless, when comparing a merged group of students with English level knowledge of 1st to 3rd with the group of 4th level, the motivation of the latter group was statistically significantly higher. Furthermore, the difference in mean values was significant for integrative, effort, valence, and ability subscales. Thus, the findings of this research depicted that instrumental and integrative motivations could be the main contributor to students’ motivation to learn English as a foreign language.

An integrative effort : Bridging motivational intensity theory and recent neurocomputational and neuronal models of effort and control allocation

An increasing number of cognitive, neurobiological and computational models have been proposed in the last decade, seeking to explain how humans allocate physical or cognitive effort. Most models share conceptual similarities with motivational intensity theory (MIT), an influential classic psychological theory of motivation. Yet, little effort has been made to integrate such models, which remain confined within the explanatory level for which they were developed, i.e. psychological, computational, neurobiological and neuronal. In this critical review, we derive novel analyses of three recent computational and neuronal models of effort allocation—the expected value of control (EVC) theory, the reinforcement meta-learner (RML) model, and the neuronal model of attentional effort— and establish a formal relationship between these models and MIT. Our analyses reveal striking similarities between predictions made by these models, with a shared key tenet: a non-monotonic relationship between perceived task difficulty and effort mobilization, following a saw-tooth or inverted-U shape. In addition, the models converge on the proposition that the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) may be responsible for determining the allocation of effort and cognitive control. We conclude by discussing the distinct contributions and strengths of each theory toward understanding neurocomputational processes of effort allocation. Finally, we highlight the necessity for a unified understanding of effort allocation, by drawing novel connections between different theorizing of adaptive effort allocation as described by the presented models (cognitive, neurobiological, and neuronal levels of analysis).

Students’ Motivation to Learn English as a Foreign Language in the Context of Saudi Arabian Learners

Motivation is the major contributor to the students’ learning English as a second language. However, varying reasons have been suggested by different researchers and theorists to explain the reasons and dimensions of this motivation. Therefore, the study aimed to evaluate the motivation to learn English as a foreign language (EFL) among 157 Saudi Arabian university students. The instrument used for the analysis was a modified version of the motivation scale developed by Wen (1997), which measures motivation based on six subscales: integrative, instrumental, effort, valence, expectation, and ability. In addition, students’ motivation was compared among students with different English language levels using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) on six motivation subscales. The results of the MANOVA revealed that there was no significant difference among students of different levels of English knowledge when each level was compared separately. Nevertheless, when comparing a merged group of students with English level knowledge of 1st to 3rd with the group of 4th level, the motivation of the latter group was statistically significantly higher. Furthermore, the difference in mean values was significant for integrative, effort, valence, and ability subscales. Thus, the findings of this research depicted that instrumental and integrative motivations could be the main contributor to students’ motivation to learn English as a foreign language.

From Ambiguity in Chinese Painting to Rorschach's Inkblots

Rorschach defines his method as a testing instrument based on the perception of ink blots, on the basis of which the subject finds meaning out of an associative integration of preexistent engrams (mnemonic images) with recent sense complexes. The more ambiguous the visual stimulus is, the more it requires an integrative effort to be decoded, therefore increasing the subject's mental activity and allowing his/her personality resources to be perceived more clearly. The subjects' responses to the stimuli of blots produced in this way would explain how the “mental equipment” organizes and processes stimuli on the basis of the construction of perception processes influenced by early registers in the archives of memory. The blots trigger these constructions, whose “thresholds” account for the potential readiness to tap on thoughts and emotions in processes of adapting to real life. Rorschach might have reached to his own knowledge on the process of construction that underlies the visual image. Most probably inspired by Chinese painting tradition – which exerted great influence on early 20th-century art movements, and relied on image overlapping, vacuum dynamics, shading, light and dark and ambiguity techniques – he constructed “accidental blots” as ideal stimuli to the “guided projection.” Thus, from the Chinese painting Rorschach would have also taken the role played by the spectator, who stimulated by an essentially ambiguous image (act of perception) is supposed to “complete” it in his mind (act of projection). In creating his method, then, Rorschach favored certain types of stimuli, integrating at the same time both his scientific and artistic sides.

Oil, politics, and economic policy making: Venezuela and the Andean Common Market

Venezuela's entry into the Andean Common Market (ACM) represents a case of systems transformation. Venezuelan membership has led both to major changes in economic provisions of the Common Market, and to significant alterations in political relations among members. Analysis of these changes depends on an understanding of the political debate in Venezuela, which was prolonged, and which led to membership under favorable terms earned through hard negotiations. Any assessment of the ultimate impact of Venezuelan participation in the ACM must remain guarded. As a wealthy and dynamic member, Venezuela could become an important catalyst for integration in the region. But with its superior economic capacity, Venezuela could also come to dominate the integrative effort, accruing most of the benefits to itself and in the process creating disruptions and dissatisfaction among the other members.