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Volume 7, Number 4         May 4, 2004                      ISSN 1099-839X 
 

 

What do Students Expect to Learn? The Role of Learner Expectancies, 

Beliefs, and Attributions for Success and Failure in Student Motivation 
 

Christine Galbreath Jernigan  

University of New South Wales  

 
This study uses the foreign language classroom to examine students' beliefs about 

learning, perceptions of goal attainment, and motivation to continue language study. 

Survey and interview results indicated students’ attributions for success and failure and 

their expectations for certain subjects’ learnability played a role in the relationship 

between goal attainment and volition. It appears that over-effaciousness negatively 

affected student motivation. For other students who felt they were "bad at languages," 

their negative beliefs increased their motivation to study. Suggestions for how these 

results apply to other disciplines and interventions for increasing student motivation are 

offered. 

 
  

Introduction 

"Life is largely a matter of expectation." Horace (65 BC-8 

BC) 

 Over the past decade, second language acquisition 

researchers have added greatly to their understanding of 

motivation. Their discoveries are often relevant to 

educational disciplines outside language learning, but are 

rarely mentioned in academic journals or texts for more 

general education. The present study looks specifically at 

language student expectation and motivation to see how 

student expectations relate to their motivation for continued 

language study. This paper examines several affective 

aspects of expectancy. These include students’ attributions 

for success and failure as well as students’ self-efficacy - 

defined as "assurance of capabilities" (Bandura, 1994). 

These aspects were chosen because they are under the 

learners' control and can therefore be changed through 

interventions (Weinstein, 1994). 

 The relationship between expectations and 

motivation is relevant for educators in disciplines other than 

language learning, particularly for instructors or researchers 

of mathematics. In studying language, much like studying 

math, students come to the class with preconceived notions 

of their abilities to succeed. Just as students of math "tend  

 

 

to see themselves as either mathematically inclined or 

disinclined" (Watson-Acosta, 2003), language students tend 

to decide early in their studies whether or not they have the 

"special gift" of language learning ability (Horwitz, 1989). 

A brief history of motivational theories is offered, followed 

by the study’s significance to current literature. 

Theoretical Framework 

Value-Expectancy Theories 

 Most relevant to this study is the social-cognitive 

approach to motivation, a theory generally used by 

educational psychologists. It emphasizes the influence that 

students' beliefs and interpretations of their experiences 

have on cognitive processes (Weiner, 1986 in Pintrich et al, 

1993). The decisions involved in goal setting are influenced 

by the degree to which individuals expect their goals will be 

met and by their beliefs about the importance of effort and 

abilities. Described formulaically, the attraction to a certain 

subject or task equals the value the person places on it 

"times the apparent probability it will be attained" (Klinger, 

1977, p. 303). Value levels affect both initial and continued 

motivation. Learners’ reactions to difficulties faced 

throughout the goal attainment process are influenced by 

whether or not they feel what is gained from their efforts 

is worthwhile-- meaning, is the effort put forth moving  

 



Current Issues in Education Vol. 7 No. 4  

 

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them in the direction they want to go (helping them make a 

certain grade, giving them a sense of accomplishment, etc.) 

(Noels, 1999). 

 The importance a task holds for an individual 

relates to what goal theorists term "goal orientation." 

Orientation involves the reasons affecting students' initial 

choice, the degree and direction of effort, and whether or 

not students persist in that activity (Nam Yung, 1996). 

Individuals may be oriented towards learning goals (also 

called mastery goals) or performance goals (Covington, 

2000). Students with learning goals demonstrate an 

incremental belief about ability, wherein ability level is 

perceived as changeable, not fixed. They acknowledge the 

possibility for growth and focus their attention on mastery 

instead of just trying to get by. Those with performance 

goals, conversely, demonstrate an entity belief about ability, 

wherein ability is fixed and not affected by increased effort. 

They tend to avoid difficult tasks for fear of failure. 

Learning orientations have been shown to affect motivation 

and student achievement. Mastery goals have been shown 

to lead to more active engagement in learning than 

performance goals (Pintrich, 2000). Students who are less 

cognitively engaged employ fewer learning strategies and 

self-regulatory practices which in turn affect their 

achievement (Covington, 2000). Schommer (1990) sees a 

direct link between beliefs and achievement. Her study 

found college students who perceived knowledge as "fixed" 

demonstrated less appropriate, overly-simplistic writing 

styles compared to students who saw learning as more 

incremental and multi-dimensional (Schommer, 1990 in 

Mori, 1997). This is perhaps because those self-regulating 

strategies that help students try multiple solutions to 

challenges are the same strategies used in the complex 

thought of writing tasks (Diener & Dweck, 1980). 

Self-Efficacy and Attribution 

 The connection between student beliefs and 

volition has received little attention in language learning 

motivation research. Further investigation could aid 

instructors and program developers in determining how to 

best meet students’ needs. 

 Albert Bandura’s work in aptitude beliefs is the 

cornerstone of self-efficacy research. He asserts that highly 

efficacious students see difficult tasks as challenges to be 

mastered, not threats to be avoided: "Such an efficacious 

outlook fosters intrinsic interest and deep engrossment in 

activities" (Bandura, 1994, p. 73). Self-efficacious students 

employ more strategic planning towards accomplishing 

their goals (Oxford, 1994). Efficacy levels also affect the 

type of linguistic information they choose to pay attention 

to, which in turn affects proficiency (Mori, 1997). 

 Student efficacy often comes from vicarious 

experiences (Schunk, 1991). For example, students may 

assess their language learning ability based on ‘myths’ 

propagated by classmates or on advertisers' promises of 

quick success. Many university students expect to be fluent 

after one or two years of study (Horwitz, 1989). They 

become frustrated when they do not progress that quickly 

and often discontinue study of the language when their 

expectations go unmet (Horwitz, 1989; Altman, 1985). 

Bandura (1994) argues that the resulting frustration lowers 

self-efficacy and makes students "slacken their efforts and 

give up quickly in the face of difficulties" (Bandura, 1994, 

p. 8). 

 This frustration is not unique to language study. 

The negative stereotype about women and math, for 

example, affects students’ efficacy. Female students are so 

averse to reinforcing the stereotype that they become overly 

anxious in math courses, impairing their performance 

(Oswald & Harvey, 2003). Their lowered self-efficacy 

makes them use fewer autonomous learning behaviors 

necessary for achievement (Greene et al, 1999) and causes 

attrition in future math-related courses (Oswald & Harvey, 

2003). 

 Clearly, however, not all students desist when 

faced with challenges. To explain this variability, 

researchers in educational psychology point to student 

attributions, defined as perceived causes for success or 

failure (Schunk, 1991). "Locus of control," a generalized 

control over outcomes, describes how individuals perceive 

success or failure as either independent of their own actions 

and thus "externally controlled" or dependent on the way 

they behave and thus "internally controlled" (Rotter, 1966 

in Schunk, 1991). An attribution such as "motivation" or 

"effort" would most likely be considered "controllable," 

whereas "luck" or task difficulty would be considered 

uncontrollable (Weiner et al., 1983 in Schunk, 1991). 

Whether students believe they have control over learning 

outcomes affects how much effort they expend in learning 

and how long they persist in their efforts (Oxford, 1994). 

According to Dolinger’s (2000) study of college students’ 

locus of control, students who feel they have internal 

control may be more successful learners because they are 

more perceptive of their environments: "Internals more 

readily acquire and utilize information that is relevant to 

their goal situation" (Dolinger, 2000, p. 1). Other studies 

show that students with internal attributions of control 

demonstrate higher achievement because they are better at 

planning how to complete academic tasks (Biggs, 1987 in 

Hall, 2001). Conversely, attributions of low ability 

negatively affect long-term success and student retention, as 

students desist in the face of lower self-esteem and a sense 

of helplessness (Graham, 1990 in Tse, 2000) 

 In recent years, these causal attributions have been 

more frequently mentioned in interpreting results of foreign 

language studies (Nam Yung, 1996; Wen, 1997). Yet few 

foreign language researchers have included attributional 

theories in the design of their studies. The present study 

operationalizes the concept of attributions within the 

context of the foreign language classroom. 

Significance and Objectives 

 This study will examine university students of 

Portuguese, a population chosen for two reasons. 



What do Students Expect to Learn?  

 

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Portuguese is the world’s eighth most widely spoken 

language (Family Education Network, 2003) and is 

considered a "critical language" for the federal government. 

Survey figures, however, show Portuguese language 

programs in U.S. universities are not keeping up with other 

language programs in terms of growth (National Security 

Education Program, 2001; Silva, 2000). 

 Students of Portuguese were also chosen as 

participants for examining expectancies and attributions 

since changes in beliefs may be most needed for students of 

languages that are less commonly taught (LCTLs). Over-

efficaciousness has been shown to be problematic for 

students of more commonly taught languages such as 

French and Spanish (Horwitz, 1989). It can be even more 

problematic for students of lesser commonly taught 

languages because they have generally had less exposure to 

the language before its introduction in the classroom. They 

therefore have less real world experience on which to base 

their assumptions. Of the limited studies on LCTL students, 

several found that students were not aware of the level of 

difficulty of the language; the ensuing over-efficaciousness 

proved a barrier to continued motivation (Wen 1997, p. 

236). In fact, two years of instruction, the amount required 

in most universities, leaves the LCTL student at only the 

very beginning stages of the language (McGinnis, 1994). In 

the case of Portuguese students, many already know a bit of 

Spanish and therefore may hold unrealistically high 

expectations of reaching advanced levels of Portuguese 

within a short amount of time. 

 This study seeks to answer the following research 

questions to see how students’ expectations, attributions, 

and beliefs about learning affect their motivation and their 

decisions to continue or discontinue formal study of the 

language: 

 

1. What are students’ expectations for goal 
attainment? 

2. What are students’ attributions for success and 
failure in meeting their language learning goals? 

What are their beliefs about language learning? 

3. What role, if any, might students' perceived goal 
attainment play in students’ motivation and their 

decision to continue studying the language? 

 

Methodology and Procedures 

 A combination of quantitative and qualitative 

methods were employed to survey a large pool of 

participants while also obtaining more in-depth data from 

open-ended questions and interviews. If we consider 

qualitative and quantitative research as two ends of a 

continuum rather than two completely distinct methods, this 

study would fall closer to the qualitative end of the 

spectrum. The study is therefore more exploratory than 

confirmatory. It offers a new perspective on this student 

group, but avoids the causal "certainties" that purely 

quantitative data pursues. 

 The various types of data in this exploration 

worked together. Numerical survey data (Appendices A and 

B) gave general background information on students and an 

overview of their goals, expectations and motivations. It 

also helped determine which students to interview (a full 

description of this decision process is found in the 

"Participants" section of this work). The more qualitative 

open-ended survey items added details to responses to the 

more numerical survey questions. They also pointed out 

key informants to interview and helped guide interview 

questions. For example, several students mentioned an 

advisor who had told them how easy it was to learn 

Portuguese. I therefore interviewed this advisor to find out 

more about her interaction with students. 

 Post-survey interviews asked students to elaborate 

on their survey responses and thus obtained a more in-depth 

picture of students’ beliefs and motivations. These 

measures were developed through a series of pilot studies. 

Measurements and Pilot studies 

 Several pilot studies at the University of Texas at 

Austin (U.T.), where the actual study would be performed, 

elicited information about students' motivations. This 

information helped formulate interview questions and 

modify previously used survey instruments to fit this 

specific population. In the first pilot study, the researcher 

observed 30 class hours at the University of Texas to 

become familiar with the Portuguese classroom setting. 

Opening and closing interviews were performed to see how 

students would articulate concepts like goals and goal 

attainment. 

 The next pilot used three Portuguese classes as its 

subjects. Students were given an open-ended questionnaire 

that asked them to brainstorm their reasons for taking 

Portuguese and their goals for their class. They then circled 

their three most important reasons and goals. The reasons 

students gave were coded and used to modify the 

motivational survey "Reasons for Studying Spanish" (Ely, 

1986), which after further pilot testing became the survey 

section "Reasons for Taking Portuguese" (Appendix A Part 

II). Similarly, the goals students mentioned were used to 

modify a goals survey previously used with students of 

French and Spanish (Harlow & Muyskens, 1994). At the 

close of the semester, students completed Speiller’s (1988) 

questionnaire "Factors Influencing Students to Continue or 

Discontinue Language Study" and were asked to comment 

on any confusing or non-applicable parts of the study. 

Based on students’ comments, the survey was broken down 

into two separate surveys, one for continuers and one for 

discontinuers. 

 The third pilot study administered the revised 

surveys to students in two other Portuguese classes. Results 

indicated the importance of students' expectations to their 

perceived goal attainment. Though no specific hypotheses 

were made based solely on pilot data, some preliminary 

assumptions served as a skeleton for examining patterns, 



Current Issues in Education Vol. 7 No. 4  

 

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testing the conditions of various relationships, and building 

theories. 

 To gain richer data and ensure that students’ 

individual responses would be elicited, the open-ended 

questions were added to the surveys. To test this 

combination of open-ended and Likert scale items, the 

modified surveys were piloted. The actual study would 

begin soon, so this version of the surveys was given to a 

group of Spanish students at another Texas university to 

avoid having students see the surveys in both the pilot and 

in the actual study. 

 This pilot was helpful in ensuring that students 

would understand the survey’s breakdown of cultural items. 

Cultural items were broken down into four elements, as 

recommended by the American Council for the Teaching of 

Foreign Languages. The council notes that the culture 

taught in the classroom is not just one entity. Instead, it 

consists of both products distinct to different countries and 

cultural patterns as well as the actual understanding 

(perspectives) of those products and patterns of behavior. In 

the surveys, the breakdown was described as follows: 

 

 country's products (e.g. books, art, music, 
political systems, etc.); 

 cultural perspectives on those products (attitudes 
explaining why certain products exist and are 

valued); 

 cultural practices (how people use cultural 
products; patterns of behavior such as how people 

celebrate, dress, etc.); and 

 cultural perspectives on those practices (i.e. the 
attitudes and ideas that explain why people behave 

as they do) (National Standards in Foreign 

Language, 1999). 

 

 This breakdown is important to avoid problems 

faced in previous research on foreign language goals. A 

prime example is found in Alalou’s (2001)'s questionnaire 

on students' perceived needs in foreign language courses. 

As Alalou admits, since the term "culture" was not defined, 

results were difficult to interpret: 

 Although in this study, 'culture' is understood in its 

broad sense, referring to both high and popular culture,..we 

know very little about students' definition of 'culture' 

because students in this study were not asked to provide a 

specific definition of the term (Alalou, 2001, p. 461). 

 In concluding this description of measure 

development, it should be noted that before beginning the 

actual study, the researcher realized the limitations of using 

self-report measures. One could argue, for example, that 

students may say that in the next few weeks they plan to 

register for another Portuguese class and continue their 

studies, when in fact they may not actually register for that 

class when the time comes. This study examines students’ 

motivations, however, as opposed to all the many factors 

that affect course registration (illness, finances, etc.). As 

such, self-report measures appear to reveal the data 

necessary to better understand what encourages students to 

want to learn more. 

Participants 

 Participants in this study included 101 lower-

division Portuguese students at U.T. Austin, their 

instructors, and four student advisors. The research was 

reviewed and passed by the university’s Human Subjects 

Review Board. Before any surveys or interviews were 

completed, the subjects received a consent form discussing 

the purpose of the research, their anonymity as subjects, 

and that their participation/non-participation would not be 

discussed with their instructors or otherwise affect their 

standing in the department. 

 Information on individual student participants was 

gathered through the background questions completed by 

eighty-four students- forty-three females and forty-one 

males. Most students were undergraduates (71.3%) with 

most of those sophomores or seniors, 26.2% were graduate 

students, and two students had already graduated. Nearly 

half were humanities majors with the remaining students 

studying sciences or registered as ‘undeclared.’ Well over 

half of the students were Caucasian (63.1%). A large 

percentage were Hispanic (29.8%). Other students 

described their ethnicity as Asian-American, African-

American, or "other." Most spoke English as a first 

language though over half of all respondents had studied 

Spanish formally for over two years. Twenty percent spoke 

Spanish as a first language. Just over half were taking the 

Portuguese to fulfill a requirement. 

Data collection 

 Data sources included surveys and interviews with 

students, instructors and advisors. In the actual study, the 

first week of class, the researcher administered the first 

survey on students' backgrounds, initial motivations, goals, 

and expectations (See Appendix A). The second survey, 

administered the antepenultimate week of class, examined 

students' perceived goal attainment and reasons for 

(dis)continuing formal study (Appendix B). 

 Telephone interviews were conducted with the 

following student groups: seven of the eight students who 

dropped the class before the end of the semester; all six 

students who were auditing courses; and five ‘extra’ 

students whose survey responses merited further inquiry. In 

addition, thirty students taking the course for a grade were 

selected to do both opening and closing interviews (See 

Appendices C and D). These thirty subjects were selected 

using a stratified purposeful sampling technique (Mertens, 

1997) based on students' goal values and expectations 

ratings. Groups were formed by coding goal value and 

expectation sections from the first surveys (Appendix A 

Part III C and D). Using EXCEL, students were divided 

into four groups: those with a tendency to have low-valued 

goals paired with low expectations, those with low-valued 

goals paired with high expectations, etc. Participants were 

separated into level (beginner, intermediate, etc.). Each 



What do Students Expect to Learn?  

 

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class was separated into the four groups and participants 

names were then randomly chosen from each group. To 

follow up on students’ responses, the researcher 

interviewed four teachers and four administrators whom 

students mentioned as having influenced their decision to 

study the language. 

 Data was also collected at Tulane University to 

compare their students’ motivations for taking Portuguese 

with University of Texas students. Tulane was chosen 

because it is a small private university (12,000 students) 

compared to the University of Texas, a large public 

institution (49,000 students). The purpose of Tulane’s 

inclusion was not to show that results from the University 

of Texas study are transferable to all other universities. 

Instead, by comparing U.T.’s data to a different university, 

it was useful in giving thicker description of U.T.’s 

population and environment. This may aid readers in 

deciding the degree of transferability this study has to their 

own situations. Survey and interview measures and 

selection procedures were identical to those used with the 

University of Texas sample, except that the second survey 

was not administered to the Tulane population. Thirty-five 

participants from Tulane took part in the study. Judging 

from non-participant observation, course descriptions and 

syllabi, and instructors' and students' comments, U.T. and 

Tulane’s first and second semester courses seemed fairly 

similar in content. One Tulane course, a Portuguese 

literature class with five students, was not offered to U.T. 

undergraduates, and was therefore not included in the 

results. 

Data Analysis 

 Survey data analysis used the statistical software 

SPSS and included frequencies, means, and standard 

deviations, and factor analysis of Likert scale responses. 

These figures and the reliability for each scale are found in 

the results section of this work. 

Qualitative analysis used the qualitative research program 

"QSR NUD*IST" (Qualitative Solutions and Research Pty 

Ltd.’s Non-numerical Unstructured Data: Indexing, 

Searching, and Theorizing). It is a code-based theory-

building program useful in forming and describing 

categories, making connections between categories, 

constructing theories, and validating or rejecting theories 

about categorical relationships. Its flexible searching 

features were helpful in working with large amounts of text 

and coding. Its compatibility with SPSS helped link the 

quantitative and qualitative data. 

 As the data were collected, I transcribed interviews 

and employed a grounded theory approach for analysis and 

for analysis of the qualitative survey responses. I used 

Strauss and Corbin's (1990) analysis method: a "systematic 

set of procedures to develop an inductively derived 

grounded theory about a phenomenon" (Strauss & Corbin, 

p. 24). Grounded theory involves going into a research 

situation (in this case, a college classroom) and finding out 

what is taking place and how the people relate to that 

situation. 

 The first stage of procedures involved the "open-

coding" of interview data, defined as "breaking down, 

examining, comparing, conceptualizing, and categorizing 

data." (Strauss and Corbin, 1990, p. 61). All 60 transcripts 

from the thirty main interviewees, along with those from 

the seven "drop" and the five "extra" interviews, were read 

for emerging commonalties and patterns. I used a line-by-

line approach analyzing each sentence and separating data 

into categories relevant to students' motivation. Categories 

were given descriptive names like "Beliefs about learning 

culture," and the categories were described in memos. 

Throughout the coding process, I reread category names, 

their descriptions, and their coded information to ensure 

new information fit the categories. Often times these re-

readings, coupled with the constant addition of new data, 

prompted the collapse of two similar categories into one. Or 

the addition of new data prompted the expansion of one 

category into several, for a richer description of the 

phenomenon. For example, at first I had only one category 

for students’ beliefs. Later, however, this category was 

expanded into two categories: one for "Beliefs-about-

language-learning" (with subcategories for beliefs about 

"Natural ability," the importance of "Early exposure", etc.) 

and one for "Beliefs about learning culture" (with students’ 

comments about how culture was learned separately from 

the language, how teaching culture was laden with bias 

etc.). The split was made as it became obvious, in analyzing 

student responses, that patterns emerged differently under 

those two categories. 

 The next step involved "axial coding" in which 

connections were formed among the categories found in 

open coding. A tree-like structure contained each category, 

with "motivation" as the root from which branches 

(categories) and limbs (sub-categories) emerged. The tree 

diagram was modified as I worked and reworked the 

connections among categories, confirming relationships 

with data from other sources such as teachers' and 

administrators' interview data or responses to open-ended 

survey items. There was a constant interplay between the 

interview data and responses to questionnaire items to 

validate and refine relationships among categories. The tree 

sketches were helpful when interpreting and confirming 

quantitative findings. For example, I was not surprised 

when, during factor analysis, a survey item about students’ 

desire to "Translate Portuguese" clustered with less 

practical items such as "Enjoy myself" and "Improve my 

accent." Interview data had similarly shown that many 

students whose goals fell into a "Hobby/fun" category also 

had more "Practical goals" and wanted to put Portuguese to 

work-related use. 

 Data analysis took place both during and after data 

collection, in line with Creswell’s (1998) emphasis on a 

zigzag approach between data gathering and its analysis. It 

was essential that the analysis begin during data collection 



Current Issues in Education Vol. 7 No. 4  

 

6 

because the patterns, commonalties and differences that 

emerged early in the collection process could then be 

examined in further detail in later interviews, follow-up 

emails or extra interviews. 

Results 

Research Question 1: Student Expectations 

Reasons for taking the class: Initial Motivation 
 To give a better idea of students’ expectations for 

goal attainment, it is important to examine why students 

initially decided to take the class. The "Reasons for 

studying Portuguese" section consisted of thirty items, 

including an "other" item; each item was ranked in 

importance ranging from 0-3. Rankings of the top 10 means 

for responses for the "Reasons for studying Portuguese" 

section appear in descending order in Table 1 below. 

 The scale was subjected to an internal consistency 

reliability analysis. Very few students responded to the 

"other" item so it was not included in determining internal 

consistency. The Cronbach Alpha was .73 which is 

somewhat low, suggesting multidimensionality within the 

survey items. As such, some clusters of items may tend to 

vary together more than others, bound by an underlying 

commonality (SPSS, 1999). A factor analysis was 

performed (Tables 2-7) to show the underlying factors that 

link certain survey items. 

 Factor analysis was chosen over principal 

components analysis since it is recommended in cases 

where items are correlated. In fact, items did appear to be 

correlated as shown by the .718 Kaiser-Meyer Olkin 

Measure sampling adequacy. Maximum Likelihood 

extraction method with a Promax rotation was used as it is 

suggested for use in cases where items are correlated 

(Rennie, 1997). There were nine eigenvalues greater than 

1.0. I decided to set the number of factors at six rather than 

nine since, judging from the scree plots, there appeared to 

be a leveling off after six factors, indicating that six factors 

were sufficient to account for the variance. Values lower 

than .3 were suppressed. It is questionable in a confirmatory 

factor analysis to include variables whose correlations with 

the other variables are below .4 in absolute value 

(Hedderson, 1993, p. 174). However, since this was an 

exploratory factor analysis and since the two variables with 

loadings just under .4 appear to fit conceptually, I felt the 

information gained from including the two variables 

outweighed any reservations about relatively low values. 

 Six factors accounted for 45.4% of the total 

variance and the factor correlation matrix showed a low 

correlation of .28, indicating that the six factors, or clusters, 

were distinct. These groupings of items were helpful in 

interpreting survey responses because items clustering 

together could be considered part of the same underlying 

concept. For example, the first factor to emerge was labeled 

"Cultural interests" since it housed items related to students' 

interests in the target countries' cultures, including their 

history and their importance among other countries in the 

world. Table 2 illustrates the questionnaire items that form 

this cluster and the factor loadings. This cluster accounted 

for 17.81% of the total variance and the Cronbach alpha for 

this factor was .87. 

 The second cluster of items that emerged was 

labeled "Career/academic advancement." The total variance 

explained by this cluster was 7.96% and the Cronbach alpha 

for this factor was .73. The items and loadings for this 

cluster are listed in table below. 

 Though it may appear that the "Portuguese-

speaking friends" item is illogically grouped among more 

practical motivations, interviews with students revealed that 

this cluster is not purely pragmatic in nature. The following 

student quotes show how work and pleasure cannot be so 

easily divided. 

The future career wasn't at all important at first. I was 

just interested in being able to understand what my 

(Brazilian) girlfriend was thinking. But the sounds, I 

always liked..the cultural items came up later. Then 

after taking the language, I started moving in the 

company towards Latin American and then became 

interested..in Latin American and Brazil. 

(The main reason I am taking Portuguese is that) I 

wanted to learn another language and have covered 

the western hemisphere with English and Spanish.I 

never considered the job part. The job part I didn’t 

think of until later when it was like, ‘If I keep 

doing this, I could put it on my resume.’ 

I'm a Spanish speaker and I inherently love the 

(Portuguese) language and there's a trilingual 

fascination because of business which grew out of 

my love for Spanish and Brazil. So it (my reason 

for studying Portuguese)does have to do with love 

of other cultures and Brazilian friends, so I love to 

sell Brazil. 

 The third cluster, "Requirement motivation," had a 

Cronbach alpha of .37 and accounted for 7.55% of the total 

variance. The "travel for pleasure" item loaded positively 

for "Requirement motivation" while other variables loaded 

negatively. The sign difference indicates that as interest in 

"travel for pleasure" increased, interest in "requirement" 

and "scheduling" decreased and vice versa. 

 The fourth cluster, "Language as hobby," 

accounted for 4.99% of the total variance and its Cronbach 

alpha was .71. Its items were characterized by a love of 

language study due to ease, experience, and intrinsic 

interest. 

 The fifth cluster, "Fun," accounted for 3.98% of 

the total variance and its Cronbach alpha was .73. Items in 

this cluster described students' desire to enjoy learning 

Portuguese due to its interesting sounds and to the fact that 

is less commonly taught than Spanish or French. 



What do Students Expect to Learn?  

 

7 

Table 1: Top 10 Students' Ranking for Reasons for Studying Portuguese 

Survey Item: Reasons for Studying Portuguese Mean 
Standard 

Deviation 

9. because I feel it may be helpful in my future career 2.27 .97 

1. because I want to use Portuguese when I travel for pleasure to a Portuguese-speaking country 2.21 .88 

27. because I thought it might be fun 1.92 .92 

7. because I am interested in (a) Portuguese-speaking country's(ies') cultural practicess (how 

people use cultural products; patterns of behavior like how people celebrate, dress, etc.) 
1.90 .91 

3. because I am interested in (a) Portuguese-speaking country/countries' history 1.80 .98 

8. because I am interested in (a) Portuguese-speaking country's (ies') cultural perspectives on 

those practices (i.e. the attitudes and ideas that explain why people behave as they do) 
1.76 .90 

2. because I want to able to converse with Portuguese-speakers in the U.S. 1.76 .90 

5. because I am interested in (a) Portuguese-speaking country's(ies') products (e.g. books, art, 

music, political systems, etc.) 
1.75 1.07 

6. because I am interested in (a) Portuguese-speaking country's (ies') cultural perspectives on 

those products (attitudes explaining why certain products exist and are valued) 
1.65 1.10 

15. because it may make me a more competitive job candidate or graduate school candidate 1.64 1.23 
 

 

 

Table 2: Factor Loadings for the "Cultural Interests" Cluster (for Tables 2-9, see Appendix A Part II for full survey 

items) 

Cultural Interests Loading 

6. perspectives on products 0.904 

7. cultural practices 0.881 

8. perspectives on practices 0.828 

5. cultural products 0.723 

3. history 0.549 

19. study in subject involving Portuguese 0.487 

17. important language in the world 0.396 
 

 

 

 



Current Issues in Education Vol. 7 No. 4  

 

8 

Table 3: Factor Loadings for the "Career/academic Advancement" Cluster 

Career/academic advancement Loading 

10. study or business abroad 0.697 

9. future career 0.56 

15. competitive job/grad school candidate 0.529 

21. connection to major 0.503 

11. Portuguese-speaking friends 0.475 
 

Table 4: Factor Loadings for the "Requirement Motivation " Cluster 

Requirement motivation Loading 

12. requirement university -0.658 

4. requirement major. minor scholarship -0.631 

18. scheduling -0.472 

1. travel for pleasure 0.457 

26. dissatisfied with study of another language -0.347 
 

Table 5: Factor Loadings for the "Language as Hobby" Cluster 

Language as hobby Loading 

24. languages come easy 0.872 

23. love languages 0.734 

25. easier given my background in Spanish 0.523 
 

Table 6: Factor Loadings for the "Fun" Cluster 

Fun Loading 

27. fun 0.765 

20. sounds of Portuguese 0.64 

22. something different 0.558 
 

Table 7: Factor Loadings for the "Heritage" Cluster 

Heritage Loading 

17. communicate with relatives 0.751 

13. heritage 0.614 
 



What do Students Expect to Learn?  

 

9 

 

 The final cluster, "Heritage," accounted for 3.08% 

of the total variance and its Cronbach alpha was .62. (See 

Table 6.) 

 These results indicate that students were taking 

Portuguese for a variety of reasons, in particular future 

career and travel-for-pleasure plans; cultural reasons were 

also frequently mentioned. (See Table 7.) 

Tulane University’s Results for Initial Motivation 
 In comparing Tulane’s results of the Reasons 

section of the survey, independent sample t-tests found that 

only eight of the twenty-nine reasons were significantly 

different, and all eight were related either to language 

requirements, language-as hobby-items, or cultural items. 

The table that follows compares the ranking of means of 

U.T. and Tulane students' reasons for enrolling, with the 

statistically significant reasons highlighted for the 

university with the higher mean. 

 The table shows that Tulane students placed less 

emphasis on the language requirement than U.T. students. 

Interviews with administrators at the University of Texas 

and with professors at Tulane suggested that U.T. students 

use Portuguese to fulfill the language requirement more 

than Tulane students. This is most likely due to larger U.T. 

enrollments which cause Spanish classes to fill up early. 

Students therefore turn to Portuguese as a viable option for 

meeting their requirements. Since Tulane is a smaller, private 

university, it has fewer problems with students' demands 

exceeding course openings. U.T. also has a longer language 

requirement of 4 semesters where Tulane’s is three. 

 Tulane students’ ranking of "Easier given Spanish 

background, "Love languages, and "Languages come easy" 

as higher than U.T. students may owe to differences in 

language backgrounds of the two populations. Table 9’s 

background survey results show that with the exception of 

the "over 2 year" category, Tulane students tended towards 

greater exposure to Spanish language than U.T. students. 

 The background section of the survey also showed 

that Tulane students had spent more time in a wider variety 

of Spanish-speaking countries than U.T. students. Perhaps 

differences in experience with Spanish, be it formal study 

or travel/work abroad, could account for the higher number 

of Tulane students noting that Portuguese and language in 

 general come easily to them. 

Survey responses showed a general tendency for a broader 

range of responses from the University of Texas population. 

Results from the independent sample t-tests of the "Reasons 

for studying Portuguese" section showed higher standard 

deviations for U.T. than for Tulane responses. Examination 

of boxplots of responses from both populations indicated 

that this range of response from U.T. was not caused by 

outliers. These results could indicate that Tulane is a more 

homogeneous sample. It could be argued, therefore, that the 

University of Texas sample, with its wider dispersion of 

responses, gives a broader cross section of the larger 

population of Portuguese students. Though the nature of 

this study as a whole is exploratory, these results are helpful 

for researchers interested in conducting more confirmatory 

type analyses and for readers deciding how this study’s 

results transfer to their own situations. They indicate that 

U.T.’s population gives evidence of being a somewhat 

representative sample, offering diversity of responses that 

may be found in other university settings. 

Goals for the course 

 On the Goals section of the survey (Appendix A 

Part III), students ranked each goal item from 0-3. The scale 

was subjected to an internal consistency reliability analysis. 

The Cronbach Alpha was found to be .85. Rankings of the 

top 10 goals are listed below. 

 To have a clearer picture of patterns emerging 

from students' responses, survey items underwent a factor 

analysis. I used a Principal Axis Factoring extraction 

method with a Direct Oblimin rotation. This extraction and 

rotation are recommended in cases where the items are 

correlated. There were only three eigenvalues greater than 

1.0. I decided to set the number of factors at four rather than 

three, however, since scree plots showed more of a leveling 

off after four factors than after three. Values lower than .3 

were suppressed. 

 Four factors accounted for 56.2% of the total 

variance. Again, clusters were labeled according to the 

underlying factor they appeared to represent. Each factors’ 

percentage of the total variance (PTV) is listed in each table 

along with its Cronbach alpha.  

 It was obvious from survey results that several 

students’ goals followed from their reasons for taking the 

course. The four skills of "Speaking," "Listening," 

"Writing," and "Reading" ranked as the most important goal 

categories. This fits logically with the highly ranked 

reasons for studying Portuguese "Future career" and 

"Travel for pleasure." Meeting goals within the four skills 

categories would facilitate work-related contact with native 

speakers and travel to Portuguese-speaking countries. It 

makes sense that the goal category "Enjoy myself" ranked 

highly given the high ranking of "Fun" as a reason for 

taking Portuguese. 

 It is important to note, however, that in many cases, 

students’ reasons for taking Portuguese were different from 

their goals. The most marked difference was that of culture, 

ranked as an important reason for taking the class, but not 

ranked as highly as an actual goal for the course. 

Expectations and Perceived Goal Attainment 

 Results from the second survey indicated students 

felt most of their objectives were met except those 

involving speaking and cultural goals. The rankings for the 

top 10 goals attained are found in Table 15. Using a scale 

from one to ten, students ranked the degree to which they 

felt their goals for the semester were met. 



Current Issues in Education Vol. 7 No. 4  

 

10 

Table 8: Reasons and Tulane Reasons Rankings (SD=Standard Deviation) 

U.T. Rankings Mean SD Tulane Mean SD 

Future career 2.35 0.97 Future career 2.57 0.65 

Travel for pleasure 2.2 0.87 Travel for pleasure 2.43 0.61 

Cultural practices 1.91 0.91 Cultural practices 2.29 0.79 

Fun 1.78 0.96 Love languages 2.23 0.91 

Cultural products 1.78 1.07 Perspectives on practices 2.23 0.88 

Competitive job/grad school candidate 1.76 1.2 Competitive job/grad school candidate 2.2 1.08 

Perspectives on practices 1.76 0.98 Easier given Spanish background 2.17 0.92 

Perspectives on products 1.75 1.04 Fun 2.06 0.87 

History 1.75 1 Cultural products 1.97 1.07 

Love languages 1.65 1.09 Converse with speakers in U.S. 1.94 1.03 

Requirement-

major/minor/scholarship 
1.62 1.45 Perspectives on products 1.91 1.04 

Converse with speakers in U.S. 1.6 0.89 History 1.91 1.01 

Portuguese-speaking friends 1.56 1.08 Sounds of Portuguese 1.8 0.99 

Sounds of Portuguese 1.55 1.09 Portuguese-speaking friends 1.77 1.17 

Study or business abroad 1.49 1.3 Connection to major 1.77 1.19 

Important language in the world 1.45 0.86 Important language in the world 1.77 0.77 

Easier given Spanish background 1.44 1.13 Languages come easy 1.74 0.98 

Connection to major 1.42 1.32 Study or business abroad 1.71 1.3 

Something different 1.22 1.03 
Study in subject involving 

Portuguese 
1.43 1.2 

Requirement-university 1.16 1.42 Something different 1.11 1.02 

Languages come easy 1.05 1.03 Requirement-major/minor/scholarship 0.97 1.18 

Study in subject involving Portuguese 0.76 1.1 Requirement-university 0.49 0.92 

Scheduling 0.42 0.88 Faculty encouraged me 0.32 0.73 

Communicate with relatives 0.33 0.9 Advisor encouraged me 0.26 0.79 

Classes less demanding 0.31 0.69 Communicate with relatives 0.26 0.78 

Dissatisfied with study of another 

language 
0.29 0.71 Heritage 0.17 0.57 

Advisor encouraged me 0.25 0.75 Scheduling 0.14 0.6 

Faculty encouraged me 0.22 0.71 Classes less demanding 0.11 0.53 

Heritage 0.18 0.58 
Dissatisfied with study of another 

language 

8.57E-

02 
0.28 

 



What do Students Expect to Learn?  

 

11 

Table 9: U.T. (in comparable classes to Tulane participants) and Tulane Participants' Formal Study of 

Spanish 

Formal Spanish Study Percentages of U.T. participants* Percentages of Tulane participants 

Native Spanish-speaker 25.90% 42.90% 

over 2 years 61.10% 48.50% 

2 years or less 1. 8% 8.50% 

no previous study 11.10% 0% 
  

 

Table 10: Students’ Top 10 Goal Value Rankings 

Goal Category Mean Std. Deviation 

4. Speaking 2.44 0.96 

2. Listening 2.24 1.04 

1. Writing 2.23 1.01 

3. Reading 2 1.2 

13. Enjoy myself 1.81 1.28 

12. Grade 1.71 1.34 

5. Cultural Products 1.39 1.18 

10. Accent 1.25 1.26 

11. Translating 1.23 1.24 

14. Language Requirement 1.19 1.41 
 

 

Table11: Factor Loadings for the "Four Skills" Cluster 

Four Skills     PTV 46.05%     Cronbach alpha .86 Loading 

Writing 0.778 

Listening 0.809 

Reading 0.374 

Speaking 0.929 
 

 

 



Current Issues in Education Vol. 7 No. 4  

 

12 

Table 12: Factor Loadings for the "Culture" Cluster 

Culture     PTV 11.2%     Cronbach alpha .84 Loading 

Cultural products 0.605 

Perspectives on products 0.818 

Cultural practices 0.605 

Perspectives on practices 0.837 
 

Table 13: Factor Loadings for the "Requirement" Cluster 

Requirement     PTV 5.4%     Cronbach alpha . 52 Loading 

Grade 0.754 

Language Requirement 0.45 
 

Table 14: Factor Loadings for the "Linguistic Hobby" Cluster 

Linguistic Hobby     PTV 3.5%     Cronbach alpha .73 Loading 

Compare Portuguese -0.463 

Accent -0.619 

Translating -0.666 

Enjoy myself -0.534 
  

 

Table 15: Rankings for Students' Perceived Goal Attainment 

Item N Minimum response Maximum response Mean Standard Deviation 

Language Requirement 26 4 10 9 1.62 

Grade 45 0 10 8.27 2.58 

Enjoy myself 50 2 10 7.72 2.42 

Compare Portuguese 28 0 10 7.64 2.67 

Reading 52 0 10 7.08 2.33 

Listening 58 0 10 6.38 2.44 

Writing 58 0 10 6.17 2.44 

Translating 37 0 10 6.11 2.16 

Speaking 61 0 10 5.93 2.68 

Accent 38 0 10 5.89 2.71 
  



What do Students Expect to Learn?  

 

13 

 Ranking relatively low were goals of speaking 

(ranking 9
th

), accent (10
th

), and the four cultural items 

(ranking 11
th

-14
th

). Students interviewed were asked about 

these specific items. Responses indicated that they either 

lowered their expectations as the semester progressed- 

especially with respect to speaking goals- or they held low 

expectations for these goals from the outset- particularly for 

meeting cultural objectives. These trends in expectations 

deserved further inquiry. 

Speaking Goals 

 Interview results showed that Portuguese students, 

like students of more commonly taught languages, believed 

it is best to learn how to speak the language "naturally" in 

the target country rather than by taking classes (Wenden, 

1987). Instructors of other disciplines may find that 

students hold similar beliefs about subjects such as art, 

music, social studies, etc. Students may come to the class 

with preconceived notions that such topics lend themselves 

only to "learning in the real world" and thus may not see 

them as learnable in the classroom. 

 One might assume that after actually spending 

time in class, students would come to see the classroom as a 

workshop for experiential learning. They would thereby 

increase their expectations for meeting goals they had 

previously thought were incompatible with the classroom 

setting. Yet students in this study often times held even 

lower expectations for meeting speaking goals as the class 

progressed. This was due to not getting many opportunities 

to speak the language in class and not finding native 

speaker contacts to practice with outside of class. Instructor 

interviews indicated teachers felt they were giving students 

the chance to practice and the opportunity to have a hand in 

their own learning. The activities teachers cited as practice, 

however, were often seen by students as rote, time-wasting 

exercises. For example, one teacher gave a biweekly 

answering machine assignment that he felt "motivated 

students to work on their own". However, several students 

described the activity as "silly," and one student said she 

felt "it wasn't really applying.. it was more like putting the 

words together from the vocabulary list". 

 Nearly half of the students interviewed felt that 

Portuguese pronunciation itself and their speaking goals in 

general were more difficult than expected. Surprisingly, 

many of these students spoke Spanish. The following 

citations are only a few examples of comments that 

demonstrate how Spanish slowed students’ learning. 

It's a little more difficult for Spanish speakers 

because the accent is tough for Spanish speakers to 

grasp. (Researcher: That's interesting because you 

thought a Spanish background would make it 

easier to learn Portuguese.) Right, the grammar, 

the reading is not hard but the actual speaking is 

difficult. 

It's more difficult than I expected. The Spanish 

helped with sentence structure but the 

pronunciation is hard whereas in Spanish, when 

you read it, every letter is the same as it is written. 

It's strange because it seems it should be easier 

than it is, but phonetically it is a challenge. It still 

amazes me the differences (in Spanish and 

Portuguese) and it's difficult. 

With non-native Spanish speakers it's brand new 

but we (native Spanish speakers) have a lot of 

problems. To us, it's not right. I have to say it over 

and over and unteach myself (the Spanish way) to 

say it in Portuguese. 

 Interestingly, students in this study mentioned that 

university advisors- instead of helping them make more 

realistic expectations about learning to speak Portuguese, 

had instead overstated the ease with which they would learn 

the language. One undergraduate advisor was interviewed 

because her name in particular was mentioned as having 

suggested Portuguese as an "easier" alternative to Spanish. 

In the interview, the advisor said that she recommended 

Portuguese to students for "practical reasons," explaining 

that the structure of Portuguese is very similar to Spanish, 

that the vocabulary is 70-85% identical to Spanish, and that 

Portuguese grammar was "easier than Spanish grammar". 

Based on these comments alone, students may come to 

Portuguese class with the idea that Spanish will be more 

helpful than it actually is, and they may set goals that are 

not attainable within the time frame they expect. 

 Another reason behind some students’ difficulty in 

learning to speak was their anxiety. Spanish-speaking 

students in particular mentioned anxiety as a stumbling 

block. Students who acquired Spanish at home felt that they 

did not have the language learning tools that other students 

had. Their comments below were revealing: 

They (non-native Spanish speakers) learn.. with 

like "predicate" yada, yada, yada and I learned it 

by.. hearing people and knowing that's the way 

you say it whereas in a language class, they teach 

you "this person," "that person," structurally, I 

guess so I learn it different..I don't know how to 

get into that. 

From my standpoint, I've never had to learn a new 

language.. so it's completely new to me..so it's 

actually more difficult than I expected. I find 

myself being very frustrated at times. 

 



Current Issues in Education Vol. 7 No. 4  

 

14 

Cultural goals 

 Interview responses on expectations for cultural 

goals revealed that many did not expect to learn culture in 

the classroom: 

I was going into the course understanding that if 

you're not in the society or with the group of 

people, you're not going to really learn much. 

You can only learn so much about cultural aspects 

before you go. You have to live there for awhile. 

Importantly, students’ expectations of what is 

learnable in the classroom had obvious effects on 

the degree to which they valued certain goals: 

I'm interested in learning, but I haven't kicked 

in..My attitude's not in the mood to learn. It's hard 

because I have the mentality that in a classroom, 

it's more difficult to learn the language than in the 

country because that's how I always saw it. 

 Only one of the four Portuguese teachers 

interviewed mentioned culture in his response to the 

question, "What are your goals for this Portuguese class?" 

After discussing his goals of communication, he added, 

"Also I like to teach a lot of culture and have them teach 

each other culture, so every Friday we had cultural 

presentation". Though the teacher's intent was to help 

students know more about Brazilian culture, the "Friday's 

only" nature of its inclusion only reinforced the idea that 

learning culture is not integral to learning the language. As 

one student said, learning culture is "extra" and as another 

noted, it can be learned "secondary to learning the 

language." 

 When students who had listed low expectations for 

meeting cultural goals were asked about their low ratings, 

many said they felt classroom instruction on culture would 

be biased: 

With somebody teaching about cultural issues, 

they're going to filter it through their point of view 

so it's gonna be like a little biased on how they're 

presenting things. 

You really have to be in the society in order to 

really get a good perspective of the whole 

culture..It could be in some way biased by the 

beliefs of that one person. 

 Students mentioned native Portuguese-speaking 

teachers as giving a "better cultural perspective" than non-

native speakers. As one student put it, "You pick up a lot 

from observing a culture, but you know a lot more when 

you participate in it". Another student explained how it is 

more difficult for non-native speakers to teach about 

cultural perspectives since "you won't learn those things if 

you're not in direct contact with people of the actual 

culture". 

Research Question 2: Student Attributions 

 Learners attribute success or failure to effort, 

ability, luck or task difficulty (Schunk, 1991). Open-ended 

survey and interview responses as to why students did or 

did not achieve their goals revealed a combination of these 

attributions at work. The following categories emerged as 

reasons students felt they attained their goals: ‘Self’ 

(including effort and attendance), ‘Teacher,’ ‘Class itself’ 

(the curriculum and the structure of the class), and ‘Peers’ 

(enthusiasm and participation of classmates). Students who 

met their objectives described themselves as self-motivated, 

felt they worked hard, and said they were constantly 

exposing themselves to the language. 

 As to attributions for failure, two categories 

emerged: ‘Class’ (not enough time in class to practice 

speaking/listening or to focus on culture or reading) and 

‘Self’ (lack of motivation and work, lack of attendance). 

Over half of the attributions fell into the latter category with 

comments such as "I figured I would have more time, but 

it's turned out to be a really tough semester" or "I needed to 

put more time in it myself". 

 Interviewees often mentioned not being good at 

learning languages, but it was rarely blamed as the cause 

for not meeting their language goals. To further understand 

why it wasn’t considered a cause, twenty-nine of the thirty 

selected interviewees and four of the early drop students 

were asked, "Are some people inherently good at learning 

languages?" Four categories of students’ beliefs about 

language learning emerged, with some students falling in 

more than one category: ‘Natural ability,’ ‘Early exposure 

to the language’ (such as growing up with a parent who 

spoke a second language), ‘General exposure to other 

languages’ (learning a second language after childhood), 

and ‘Motivation.’ 

 Twenty-two of the total thirty-three students asked 

this question in interviews felt that some learners were 

better due to natural ability. They made comments such as 

"The language side of the brain is where some are talented 

so it's inherent without a doubt", or "Some people just 

naturally pick it up faster for no other reason-- even if they 

study, some people can't pick it up as fast". Only six 

students were in the ‘Early exposure’ group. They felt that 

some learned languages better than others because they had 

exposure to a second language as a child. Ten felt 

‘Motivation’ made some individuals better language 

learners than others because their mindset pushed them to 

succeed: "It's more of a psychological attitude.. all people 

can learn if they open their mind to it". and "It (natural 

ability) has a little to do with it- it’s how open-minded you 



What do Students Expect to Learn?  

 

15 

are about learning and how much you think it'll benefit you 

later on." 

 If grouped along the lines drawn by goal theorists, 

‘Motivation’ and ‘General exposure’ attributions are 

incrementally oriented, in that students feel they have some 

control over their learning. The ‘Natural ability’ and ‘Early 

exposure’ attributions display an entity or ‘learning-is-

fixed’ view. Particularly interesting, however, was the 

crossover of students who felt both natural ability and 

motivation were at work. Two examples of mixed 

attributions responses are as follows: 

 

There may be a genetic predisposition to learning 

languages but also there's differences in 

motivation. 

 

I have a step brother who can be in any country 

and in two months pick up the language..it's a 

freak of nature, but for most people I know, the 

ability to learn the language is dependent on 

motivation and that's it..Interest determines 

aptitude in that aspect. 

 

 It appears these students have one set of beliefs 

about learning languages that is more entity-oriented-- 

believing that some people are born with a language 

learning "gene". They have another set of beliefs they hold 

for general learning that is more incrementally oriented- 

believing that success is still possible through hard work. 

Their motivation-is-key beliefs about general learning may 

to some degree temper their ‘fixed aptitude’ beliefs about 

language learning. This would explain why many students 

whose beliefs fell into the ‘Natural ability’ category still 

took the credit for their success and the blame for their 

failures. 

 To explore this possibility, interviewees were 

asked "How do you see yourself as a language learner?" Of 

the twenty-five students responding, sixteen felt they were 

"not good" or "average", two felt they were "somewhat 

good" but had to work very hard, while only seven felt they 

were good at learning languages. One student who felt he 

was "not good" at learning languages felt he had to "go 

through the motions, prodding ahead". Interestingly, he 

added, "While others have an inherent ability, I’m highly 

motivated so I overcome my lack of ability". Similarly, 

another student said he was "certainly not" good at 

languages, adding, "I'm inherently very interested, but not 

inherently talented. I have to work- it doesn't come 

naturally". 

Research Question 3: Goal Attainment 

 Responses to survey items and to subsequent 

interview questions offered insight into whether or not 

students’ perceived goal attainment during the semester 

influenced their decision to continue or discontinue 

studying Portuguese. One might assume that students would 

continue or discontinue taking courses based on decisions 

made before the present course. In fact, according to first 

and second survey background questions about students’ 

intentions for subsequent semesters, 42% of students 

changed their minds about continuing or discontinuing over 

the course of the semester. 

 The ‘Continuance/Discontinuance’ section of the 

second survey asked students what factors affected their 

decisions to continue or discontinue taking Portuguese 

(Appendix C). Forty-five students completed the 

‘Continuance Section’ of the second survey while 19 

students completed the ‘Discontinuance Section.’ The rank 

order of the top 10 reasons students offered for continuing 

Portuguese are given in Table 16 below. 

 According to Likert scale items on progress and 

goal attainment, nearly half of the continuing students were 

continuing because of their low level of progress and just 

over a third noted that "goals not being attained" influenced 

their decision to continue. Interview follow-up questions 

concerning these counter-intuitive responses pointed out the 

importance of why students felt their goals were not met. 

Students whose surveys were coded as "low perceived goal 

attainment" were asked directly how they felt about not 

meeting those specific goals. Those who had decided to 

continue echoed comments like the following: "That 

(achieving objectives in Portuguese) is just gonna take a lot 

of time and whether they're met or not won't mean I'm 

frustrated because I know they're gonna take awhile and I 

would need to work on it." This student did not let his lack 

of goal attainment influence him to discontinue. Instead he 

was continuing because he credited that lack of success 

both to his own effort and to the difficulty of learning a 

language. Another student’s response to the same questions 

was as follows: "You can't give up so easily. Language is 

sometimes a question of practice. You have to keep trying." 

She attributed not meeting her speaking goal to not having 

sufficient time in a one-hour class to practice enough each 

day. Her later comment, "Yet, Joshua (Portuguese 

teacher) did a very good job," coupled with her assertion 

that language learning is a question of practice, showed that 

she attributed her lack of success to the very nature of 

learning a language. 

 Table 17 shows the rankings by descending means 

of the reasons students felt influenced their decisions to 

discontinue taking Portuguese. 

 The most mentioned reason, "Graduating", leaves 

little room for intervention. The second reason- "Language 

learned better in Portuguese-speaking country" - deserves 

further attention, however, and will be examined further in 

the Discussion section of this work. Over half of the 

discontinuers noted the influence of this belief in their 

decision to discontinue. 

 Another interesting item in the second survey’s top 

reasons for discontinuing Portuguese was "Goals attained". 

As one student put it, "A little more (in the area of writing 

skills) wouldn't hurt, but I feel like I have adequate 

knowledge to do what I want to do right now". His rationale  



Current Issues in Education Vol. 7 No. 4  

 

16 

Table 16: Top 10 Reasons for Continuing (for full survey items, see Appendix B, Part III) 

 

Continuance Scale items n=45 Mean Standard Deviation 

1. Travel for pleasure 2.4 0.99 

14. Future Career 2 1.09 

14. Requirement-major/minor/scholarship 1.98 1.31 

30. Connection to major 1.82 1.32 

29. Sounds of Portuguese 1.8 1.1 

36. Fun 1.78 1.13 

22. Important language in the world 1.76 0.98 

3. History 1.71 1.04 

26. Satisfaction with class 1.71 1.08 

7. Cultural practices 1.71 1.01 
 

Table 17: Top 10 Reasons for Discontinuing (for complete survey items, see Appendix B, Part IV) 

Discontinuance Scale items n=19 
Min-

imum 

Max-

imum 
Mean 

Standard 

Deviation 

8. I'm graduating this semester 0 3 1.58 1.54 

11.Language learned better in Portuguese-speaking 

country 
0 3 1.16 1.26 

2. Fulfilled language requirement-major/minor/or 

scholarship 
0 3 1.11 1.49 

12. Classload full 0 3 0.89 1.33 

1. Fulfilled language requirement-university 0 3 0.79 1.36 

19. Goals attained 0 3 0.58 1.02 

7. Level not fitting (too easy/difficult) 0 3 0.58 0.96 

18. Goals not attained 0 3 0.32 0.82 

4. Dissatisfied with Teacher 0 2 0.26 0.65 

15. Other students at a different level 0 2 0.21 0.54 
  

 

 

is indicative of a general trend among students whose goals 

were met "to the extent" they felt they needed, so they were 

not continuing their studies. Some students who had 

already learned Spanish as a second language-- as opposed 

to those who acquired Spanish from childhood-- had the 

advantage of having already learned a language. They 

sometimes found that after one or two semesters, they could 

communicate enough to be understood and were satisfied 

with their level of proficiency. This reason for 

discontinuing may be shared by students of other 

disciplines (courses in computer skills or photography, for 

example) in which an introduction to the topic may be all 



What do Students Expect to Learn?  

 

17 

students feel is necessary, since prior knowledge helps fill 

in the gaps. 

 Survey data indicated that a greater majority of 

students who decided to discontinue language study, 

however, were influenced by a more negative factor: not 

meeting their goals for reasons they felt were out of their 

control. For example, the survey reason "Level not fitting" 

had half its respondents ticking the "Level too high" option. 

The item, "Other students at a different level" had all its 

respondents ticking the "Other students at a higher level" 

option (See Appendix B Part IV numbers 7 and 15 for full 

survey items). 

 The textbook appeared to be a major reason why 

these students were not able to bridge the gap between their 

knowledge and other students’ knowledge. One student 

berated the texts’ lack of "communicative activities" and 

"non user-friendly" nature, while another said she had to 

"fumble through the homework" with no helpful 

explanations. A particularly frustrated student called it "a 

rotten book", and several others said they had to have the 

teacher’s help to grasp text material. One teacher described 

the text as "horrible" and the other three teachers expressed 

similar disappointment. It simply did not allow for self-

help. 

 Another external attribution for failure emerging 

from the data was the ‘Dissatisfaction with the teacher,’ 

ranking as ninth out of twenty in importance in the surveys 

and mentioned at length in interviews. Interviewees said the 

dissatisfaction stemmed from not seeing the relevance of 

the activities teachers chose. Again, complaints about the 

Friday culture reports were mentioned. One of several 

students who complained said he skipped Fridays to avoid 

hearing other students’ "bad Portuguese". Another student 

hated that the teacher kept showing "cheesy telenovelas" 

that were too difficult to understand: "They're just 

annoying!" 

Discussion and Recommendations 

 Many students in this study appeared to have two 

types of beliefs: one for general learning in which they felt 

their actions affected outcomes and another belief for 

language learning, in which people either have or don’t 

have a natural ability to learn languages. Some students 

demonstrated, however, a crossover of these beliefs. They 

felt that with hard work, lack of "natural ability" could be 

overcome. Similarly, Mori’s (1997) study with university 

students of Japanese found that in some cases "knowledge 

beliefs in general were transferred into the domain of 

language learning" (Mori, 1997, p. 14). However, general 

learning and language learning are "independent constructs, 

which indicates the existence of domain specific belief 

dimensions" (Mori, 1997, p. 14). 

 Interestingly, students in this study who felt they 

did not have the language learning "gift" did not let that 

lower their motivation-- quite the contrary. Students were 

perhaps demonstrating a strategy that Garcia (1995) 

describes as defensive pessimism, wherein students 

envision the worst case scenario- not attaining their goal of 

a higher grade for example, and use the anxiety the negative 

image evokes to fuel them to work harder. Instead of 

feeling empowered by a higher sense of self-efficacy, many 

of these students "gain some degree of control over the 

riskiness of evaluative situations" by becoming 

"emotionally prepared in the event they do actually 

do poorly(Garcia, 1995, p. 30). For students who attribute 

success not only to ability but also to motivation, this 

volitional strategy may buffer the blow of non-attainment of 

goals, diffusing frustrations that could have otherwise lead 

to decreased motivation. Kuhl (1986) explains this 

phenomenon by saying that volition is metamotivational, 

meaning that it deals with students' "wanting to want" to 

reach a goal and thereby helps students focus their energy 

on attaining goals they feel are difficult to reach (Kuhl, 

1986 in Corno, 1993, p. 16). These forces would not be 

necessary if goals were easy to attain (Corno, 1993). Yet, 

students with lower self-efficacy, in noting their "deficiency 

in language learning", make goal attainment a carrot that is 

difficult to reach, thereby rallying their motivational forces 

to attain the goal. 

 As concerns student attributions for success and 

failure and continued motivation, over a third of continuing 

students said they decided to continue because they did not 

attain certain goals. They recognized their objectives were 

not accomplished because they failed to engage 

motivational strategies to get the work done. Therefore, 

they did not blame the teacher or the course for not 

attaining their goals. These students continued to have high 

expectations for meeting their goals, noting that if they tried 

harder in future courses, they could reach them. 

 Concerning student motivation and the reasons 

students listed as affecting their decision to discontinue 

taking Portuguese, many showed a decrease in their 

motivation to continue taking Portuguese when they felt 

other students were at a higher level than they were. 

Rosenthal and Bandura (1978) would argue that these 

students are "gauging their own efficacy through 

knowledge of how other students are performing in the 

class" (Rosenthal and Bandura, 1978 in Schunk, 1991, p. 

123). Classroom practices such as grading on a curve or 

playing highly competitive games overemphasize the 

varying levels of different students. Teachers should instead 

"instill in students that they are still acquiring knowledge 

and skills" such that the gap in abilities at the outset of the 

class may level out throughout the course (Rosenthal and 

Bandura, 1978 in Schunk, 1991, p. 123). Teachers might 

consider, for example, implementing portfolio assessment to 

encourage students to see how far they have come. This will 

emphasize the "self-comparison of progress" rather than 

comparison with other students (Bandura, 1993, p. 125). 

 Students also felt frustrated that the textbook did 

not enable them to "catch up" to other students because it 

did not help them learn on their own. Self-efficacy 

specialists would argue that without this control providing 



Current Issues in Education Vol. 7 No. 4  

 

18 

"a major cognitive mechanism to sustain motivation", 

students may feel helpless, become frustrated, and desist 

(Bandura, 1994, p. 7). An obvious solution is for teachers 

and students to dialogue about in-class and homework 

materials to ensure any problems are solved early on. 

Students should also be made aware of resources other than 

the textbook that would help them attain their goals. These 

might include language tutors or student mentors in higher-

level classes, online language resources, or supplementary 

texts. Also beneficial are group study sessions before exams 

or quizzes. An in-class discussion of any such sessions 

should take place once students receive test results to 

determine if the session was helpful. Such meta-analysis 

helps students connect their efforts to the outcomes as 

opposed to feeling predestined for success or failure. 

 Students also suffered a decrease in volition when 

their goals were not attained due to perceptions that class 

activities- namely cultural and speaking activities- were 

"time-consuming and of little practical benefit", (Verlie and 

Rosenthal, 1981 in Woloshin 1983, p. 356). Such results fit 

with the literature on more commonly taught languages. 

One of students’ top complaints about language courses 

was the mismatch between their objectives and the 

activities chosen by the instructor (Harlowe and Muyskens, 

1994). This "mismatch" involves three issues that have 

implications for educators, administrators, and teacher 

trainers. 

 The first deals with teachers having difficulty 

knowing what students’ goals are. This study showed that 

students ranked culture as an important reason for taking 

the class, but did not rank it highly as an actual goal for the 

class. It is common practice, early in the semester, for 

teachers to ask students why they have decided to take a 

university course. It may be difficult, however, for this 

method of inquiry to determine students’ objectives; 

reasons for taking a class may help formulate objectives, 

but they cannot be considered the goals themselves. Asking 

more specific questions about students’ short term goals- 

similar to those asked in the goals section of surveys used 

in this work- could better determine student objectives. 

 Also important for curriculum planners was the 

interesting mix of responses for reasons why students were 

taking the course. In the "Career Advancement" factor 

analysis cluster of students’ reasons for taking Portuguese, 

students demonstrated a blurred line between work and 

pleasure. If educators hand out note cards asking students 

for their majors and why they are taking the course, they 

may only receive the "socially acceptable" career-oriented 

responses (Copa, 1991). Course content may thus fail to 

target students’ hobby-like interests, losing valuable 

motivating aspects of the curriculum. 

 The second issue deals with knowing how to tailor 

the class to meet the objectives of the students. This 

tendency to "miss the mark" with targeting the activity to 

the students is particularly difficult for new language 

teachers (Copa, 1991). Yet even experienced instructors 

may have trouble deciding on activities- the difficulty being 

that just because a certain task should help students meet 

their objective does not mean that it is an activity that will 

be well received by that student group. For example, 

Harlow and Muyskens' (1994) study of university students 

of intermediate French and Spanish found students rated 

speaking as one of their top three goals in the foreign 

language class, yet rated two types of speaking activities 

(partner conversations and presentations to the class) at the 

bottom of their list of preferred activities. University 

students in Tse’s (2000) study said that they wanted to 

focus on oral communication, yet they strongly disliked 

certain speaking activities such as having to speak in front 

of the class (Tse, 2000, p. 80). Oftentimes teacher training 

programs themselves are at fault for not preparing 

prospective teachers to meet these individual "quirks" 

among student populations. Instead, teaching approaches 

and activities are presented as universally applicable and do 

not take into account the diversity of the classrooms 

teachers will enter (Schleppegrell, 1997). Teacher education 

courses should include hands-on training to help teachers 

learn how to adapt teaching methodologies and customize 

classroom activities. Instead of having student teachers do 

an internship at only one location, for example, training 

might include a rotation system to expose future teachers to 

a variety of student groups. 

 The third issue deals with not communicating to 

students how the activities of the classroom meet student 

objectives. Previous research indicates that adult language 

learners often "do not connect the goal to the activities of 

the language classroom" (Bassano, 1986, p. 17) and are 

frustrated by what they see as purposelessness activities. 

For example, students in this study ranked tasks like the 

answering machine activity or watching telenovelas as 

"silly" and "irrelevant", while the instructor perceived these 

tasks as quite beneficial. Regardless of how well instructors 

think a task meets students’ goals, it is ultimately how 

students perceive the tasks that affects motivation. Though 

most teacher training courses emphasize the importance of 

knowing what objectives a class period will try to meet, 

many fail to train teachers how to clearly show students the 

connection between activities and objectives. Teachers 

must learn how to include "meta-discussions" on how 

certain tasks meet specific needs. Research shows that 

underscoring this relationship is imperative. Otherwise, 

students may highly value and feel very motivated toward 

certain goals, but the utility value may be low for certain 

tasks, resulting in less cognitive engagement (Pintrich, 

1993) and lower motivation. 

 Results of students’ beliefs and expectations for 

learning culture show how their perceptions of the teacher 

influenced their motivation to learn culture. This included 

not only their perceptions of the teachers’ expertise on the 

topic, but also how much they felt teachers emphasized 

culture in the classroom. Many students held expectations 

that native speakers would be better teachers of culture 



What do Students Expect to Learn?  

 

19 

because native teachers do not "filter" cultural aspects 

through their own perspectives. This view fits with previous 

research on teaching culture wherein students were 

concerned over the differences in "objectivity" of native 

and non-native teachers, demonstrating apprehension with 

having the culture filtered through a non-native teacher's 

perspective (Jernigan & Moore, 1997). As such, it appears 

that some students view learning culture as the teacher 

imparting information that is either accurate or inaccurate. 

Perry (1968) found that students, as they first enter college, 

tend to see knowledge as absolute and handed down by 

some higher authority. As students learn more about a 

certain topic, they perceive that there are a variety of 

opinions and that learning is relative to context (Perry, 1968 

in Mori, 1997). To help students make this leap in 

perspective, instructors must emphasize that cultural 

information, whether it be in print or from the lips of a 

native speaker, is loaded with the "biases" of the speaker 

and then perceived through the listener's cultural paradigm. 

Students should discuss how to critically view culture and how 

to recognize the ubiquitous nature of the cultural "filter". 

 From many students’ perspective, teachers did not 

make culture a focus in the classroom. When it was 

included, it was an adjunct "Friday-Culture Day" activity, 

and not an integral part of the course. This only reinforced 

many students’ view that culture is not learnable in the 

classroom setting. Both this study and previous work on 

learning culture (Root, 2003; Jernigan and Moore, 1997) 

indicate that teaching culture in the language classroom is 

challenging. Every educational discipline has its 

challenging aspects, and instructors must be aware that the 

"sin of omission" may be sending students unintended 

messages about certain concept’s learnabilty. 

 In contrast with students’ low expectations for 

learning culture were their high expectations for learning to 

speak Portuguese. Results showed that several Spanish-

speaking students’ felt frustrated because they held higher 

expectations for their learning than they were able meet. 

Educators must be aware that prior knowledge may actually 

confuse students and should take care not to push students 

into goals that are out of their reach. Past researchers in 

other disciplines such as math have found that over-rating 

ones ability can lead to decreased effort (Greene, 1999, p. 

14). Schunk (1991) notes that "challenging but attainable 

goals raise motivation and efficacy better than easy or hard 

goal (Schunk, 1991, p. 120)". By helping students make 

realistic objectives, teachers are pre-empting future 

disappointment and lowered motivation. 

 In this study, it was unfortunate to see that over-

effaciousness was sometimes caused by student advisor’s 

misrepresentation of courses. It is ineffective advertising for 

administrators to represent a course as "easy" if it leads to 

student frustration and decreased motivation. 

Communication between instructors and student advisors 

concerning class descriptions is essential if incoming 

students are to be presented with accurate information on 

which to base their expectations. 

 Students in this study who grew up bilingual from 

birth found themselves feeling anxious in class because 

they had never really learned, but had rather acquired, 

another language. Instructors must be cognizant of the fact 

that though it may appear students have prior experience in 

a certain context, they may still feel anxious in 

thelearning situation. They may be even more anxious than 

other students, as they may feel expectations for their fast 

progress are higher. In a variety of disciplines, anxiety has 

been shown to interfere with processing of information, 

inhibiting performance (Ashcraft & Kirk, 2001). Lowering 

anxiety in the foreign language classroom aids acquisition 

by allowing students to actually focus on language input 

(Tse, 2000). Implementing relaxation techniques or using 

group work have been suggested as ways to release tension 

and help students feel less alienated and more supported in 

the classroom (Higbee & Thomas, 1999). 

 One final reason why students decided to 

discontinue formal study was that they felt languages are 

better learned in a Portuguese speaking country- not within 

the artificial confines of the classroom. One could argue 

that the classroom did not offer them a feeling of "real 

world" learning. Similar research in other disciplines like 

math and statistics notes that students avoided or dreaded 

courses because they did not feel coursework was relevant 

to everyday life (Gal & Ginsburg, 1994). This points to the 

need for the classroom to be structured in such a way that 

students feel they are gaining experience applicable in the 

outside world. In the case of language courses, bringing in 

native speakers to the classroom and linking students to 

native speakers outside the classroom in coffee houses or 

online chat sessions could help students see their learning 

as experiential. This focus on relevance and authenticity is 

essential to motivation in all disciplines. Teachers should 

continually brainstorm with their students, with other 

teachers, and with administrators over how to expand the 

four walls of the classroom. 

Limitations 

The results of the study should be understood in light of 

several limitations. Self-report measures should be 

interpreted with caution. In many cases, verbal reports for 

students' reasons for their motivational decisions were 

given after the actual decisions were made. Students are 

having to rely on their memory to report their reasons. 

Students may also be giving motivations they feel are 

logical instead of reporting their true motivations. 

In addition, goals and motivation are complex constructs 

that students may have trouble defining, much less 

describing in interviews or rating on surveys. Just one 

example would be that students were asked about "short 

term goals for the semester", but separating short from long 

term goals is a complex task that will hold individual 

differences among students. 



Current Issues in Education Vol. 7 No. 4  

 

20 

 Finally, the current study is limited in that its 

scope is only exploratory, not confirmatory. Further 

research is needed to determine causal relationships among 

the complex phenomena of students’ expectations, 

attributions, and continuing motivation. 

Future Directions 

 As concerns other recommendations for future 

research, this study encourages us to see how language 

students’ expectations compare to students of other 

disciplines. Many of us know from our own experiences 

that it is not uncommon for a student to assume, "I flunked 

that test!" only to receive an "A". It would be particularly 

interesting to see if students of other disciplines use 

"defensive pessimism" to increase their volition and protect 

themselves from the threat of failure. 

 This study opens the door for future research 

comparing language learning to the learning of math- two 

topics with tendencies for lower student motivation and 

higher student anxiety. Language learning research has 

claimed that higher anxiety is due to student identity and 

self-expression being more closely tied to language than to 

other academic subjects: 

 The importance of the disparity between the ‘true’ 

self as known to the language learner and the more limited 

self as can be presented at any given moment in the foreign 

language would seem to distinguish foreign 

language..Probably no other field of study implicates self-

concept to the degree that language study does. (Horwitz, 

1986, p. 28). 

 Yet research in topics such as statistics and 

engineering that are gender stereotyped with respect to 

perceived ability has shown similar identity issues with 

students’ perceptions of self-concept and self-efficacy 

(Clark, 1999; Gal & Ginsberg, 1994). Women experiencing 

"stereotype threat" in math-related courses, for example, are 

said to "disidentify with math in order to protect the self" 

from fulfilling the stereotype of girls not being good at 

math (Oswald, 2003, p. 139). Opening a dialogue between 

these disciplines may increase possibilities for helpful 

interventions as regards student motivation. 

 Finally, the students of this study were asked to 

consider their goals for the current semester, but these may 

be inextricably linked to their future goals. Distant goals 

such a career opportunities are often contingent upon 

completing certain courses but are not contingent on actual 

performance of the tasks in the course (Greene et al, 1999). 

Some evidence has been provided that a positive 

relationship exists between these future goals and students’ 

monitoring of their own learning, which may then affect 

performance (Miller et al, 1996). Future investigation is 

needed to determine specifically how future goals interact 

with short-range goals and how they affect students’ 

motivation and achievement in the classroom. 

 

 

Notes 

1
 For the full background section of either survey or any 

other survey details, please contact the author 

at christinejernigan@yahoo.com 

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What do Students Expect to Learn?  

   

23 

Appendix A: First Survey 

Part I: Background Information 1 

Part II: Reasons for Studying Portuguese 

Please rate the degree of importance to you of the following reasons for studying Portuguese. Circle your rating using the 

following scale. 

 

 



Current Issues in Education Vol. 7 No. 4   
 

24 

Part III: Your Goals in this Class 

A. What are your goals for this semester of Portuguese? Though you may also have long-range goals that differ from those 

you plan to accomplish in this class, please consider only your goals for the current semester. (space provided) 

B. The first column below contains categories of goals that some Portuguese students have mentioned as important for them. 

If the goal category in Column 1 is an important area you want to work on in your Portuguese class this semester, write what 

specifically you hope to accomplish in that area on the blanks in Column 2. You may write more than one specific goal if you 

like (see example). If the goal category in Column 1 is not something that is your goal this semester, write "none" on the 

blank in Column 2. 



What do Students Expect to Learn?  

   

25 

 
 

 



Current Issues in Education Vol. 7 No. 4   
 

26 

C. Please look back over Column 2 in Part B. If you wrote more than one specific goal for a category, circle the one that is 

most important to you. An example is given at the bottom of this page. 

 

D. Look back again to Part B and rate your estimate of the importance for each specific goal you wrote. Circle your rating in 

Column 3 using the scale below (put "N" for "Not important" if you put "none" in Column 2). If you had more than one 

specific goal for a certain category, do your rating for the goal you circled. An example is given below. 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

E. What would you estimate is the probability that during the course of this semester you will achieve your specific goals you 

rated as slight, moderately, or highlyimportant in Part D? Below are written only the goal categories ("Writing," for example) 

but please answer based on the specific goals you listed for each category in Column 2. If you listed more than one specific 

goal for a category, do your probability rating for the one you circled. Circle the expected probability for each outcome. 

(Please circle only one number per item.) 

 

 

 

 



What do Students Expect to Learn?  

   

27 

Appendix B: Second Survey 

 

  

Part I: Background Information 1 

 

Part II: Goal Attainment this Semester 

 

A. Goal Attainment Ratings 

 

Below are handwritten the specific goals you listed on the first survey. (If you listed more than one goal per box, only your  

circled goal appears below). In Column 4, please rate the degree to which you feel your specific goal in Column 2 was 

attained this semester. 

 

 

 

16. For goals you feel were attained, to what do you attribute the success? (space provided) 

17. For goals you feel were not attained or were attained to a lesser degree, to what do you attribute that lack of 

success? (space provided) 



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B. Goal Modifications 

Refer to Columns 2 and 3 in Part A above. In your first survey, you rated your specific goals for the semester as: 

 



What do Students Expect to Learn?  

   

29 

C. Continuing or Discontinuing Portuguese Study 

1. Do you definitely plan to take another Portuguese class (meaning a class where the language spoken is Portuguese). Please 

check yes or no. Then check any applicable letter(s) below your response. 

 

2. If you answered yes above, continue to Part III and respond as a "continuing student." If you answered no above, please 

skip to Part IV and respond as a "discontinuing" student. 



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Part III: Factors Influencing Continuance of Portuguese Study 

 

A. 1. What in particular do you feel has influenced your decision to continue taking Portuguese? (space provided) 

 

B. Please rate each factor as to the amount of influence it had on your decision tocontinue taking Portuguese. 

 



What do Students Expect to Learn?  

   

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Appendix C: First Interview Questions (30 Selected Students)  



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32 

 
1. I appreciated so much your responses on the survey about why you've decided to study Portuguese but I'm 

also curious as to what you would say is the main reason(s) for taking Portuguese? 

2. On your survey you listed as goals for the Portuguese class you're taking as ___ (list goals the student 

mentioned on survey). Have you modified these goals in any way? 

(If yes) How have they changed? In what ways specifically have these goals changed? 

(If yes) What was the impetus for this change? 

3. Have your interests changed throughout the semester? 

(If yes) In what ways specifically? 

(If yes) What would you say are the reasons behind your increased interest in ___? 

a. Thus far in the semester, do you feel your goals of ___ are being met? 

b. (For goals student said were met) To what do you attribute the success with meeting your goals of ___? 

c. (For goals not met) To what do you attribute the lack of success in meeting your goals of ___? 

4. Do you feel your goals of ___ are similar to or different from teacher's? 

5. (If have previous Portuguese and/or Spanish experience-First Survey background section numbers 11 and 

12) You listed on your survey that you had previous Portuguese experience in ___ (list class or country 

visited) and Spanish experience in ___ (list class or country visited). I'm curious if you also have experience 

in other languages besides Spanish or Portuguese? (Ask specifics for each: high school including number of 

years, university, travel/living abroad, native speaker exposure and their relation to the interviewee, other) 

6. (If had previous language classes- First Survey background section numbers 11 and 12) a. In your past 

language classes, did you feel they met your expectations? 

b. Do you have an overall positive or negative impression from your past language classes? 

7. a. You said in your survey you're a _____ major (list their major from First Survey background section 

number 11). When you were in the process of deciding your major, would you have considered majoring in 

Portuguese? 

(If they're a Portuguese major) What factors went into this decision? 

(If not) What would you say were the reasons for not considering being a Portuguese major? 

(If considered, but decided to not major in Portuguese) Could you describe the process behind your decision? 

b. Would you have considered majoring in another language? 

8. a. Do you feel some people are inherently good at language learning? 



What do Students Expect to Learn?  

   

33 

b. Where would you say you fit in with that? 

c. Why would you say more students don't take Portuguese? 

9. How motivated do you feel at this point? I'll give you a five point scale to choose from: 

___ not at all ___ not very ___ somewhat ___ very ___ extremely 

(If rating has changed since first survey, mention their previous rating and ask them how they might account 

for the increase or decrease, or if it's just coincidental.) 

10. How do you feel about the class so far? 

a. Has the class been what you expected... or more... or less... than what you expected? 

b. Is there anything you would like to change about the class? 

11. How would you rate your level of satisfaction at this point in the semester, on a five-point scale 

__very dissatisfied __dissatisfied __somewhat satisfied __ satisfied __ very satisfied 

12. Are you planning to take a Portuguese class next semester? 

(If yes) Which? When? 

13. a. Is Portuguese about the level of difficulty you expected it to be? 

b. If it's more or less, what would you say you'd based your previous assumptions on? 

c. You'd said on the survey you thought you should study ___ hours and that you planned to study ___ hours 

(First Survey background question numbers 22 and 23
1
?). Have you had to study about ___ hours as you 

thought? 

*Questions 14-19 are for only for students with specific responses on their surveys. 

*14. On your survey you described Portuguese as "different" 

a. Could you explain how you felt it would be different? 

b. Has it proved so far to indeed be something different? 

*15. (For students who have already taken a semester of Portuguese) You listed the following reasons for 

taking Portuguese this semester: _________________, ________________, ______________ . . . (list 

reasons student gave on the survey). Would you say that the reasons you had for taking this semester are the 

same as those you had for taking Portuguese your first semester--when you were just starting-- or were some 

of your reasons different then? 

*16. You'd listed as a reason for taking Portuguese that you were dissatisfied with another language course. In 

what way(s) did the other language course not meet your expectations? 

*17. You'd mentioned as a reason for taking Portuguese that it might help with your future career. In what 



Current Issues in Education Vol. 7 No. 4   
 

34 

ways specifically might Portuguese be an advantage in your area? 

*18. a. Your expectations for ___ were relatively high compared to your other expectations. To what do you 

attribute this higher response? (If there were several items, go through them separately.) 

b. Your expectations for ___ were relatively low compared to your other expectations. To what do you 

attribute this lower response? (If there were several items, go through them separately.) 

*19. You'd listed as a reason for taking Portuguese that you thought it might be fun. Fun in what respect? (Try 

to see if they meant the language, the culture, language classes in general, etc.) 

20. Is there anything else that I didn't ask, anything you would like to add or discuss in further detail? 

Closing Statements: Thank you so much for you time and your thoughtful responses. If you have any 

questions, feel free to contact me...(Give contact phone/email information.) 

 



What do Students Expect to Learn?  

   

35 

 
 

Appendix D: Second Interview Questions (30 Selected Students)  

 

1. Motivation Type 

Some say there are basically 4 types of motivation when it comes to learning languages. I'd like to read the 4 

types and then ask if you feel you fit into one or more of these groups or if your motivation does not fit in any 

of these groups. I'll repeat the names and main ideas of the 4 groups at the end so don't feel you have to 

remember the specific names. The first is called an... 

integrative motivation based on a personal interest in the people and culture of the country 

external (instrumental), meaning you're motivated by the practical value to learning the language or by 

financial advantages or with greater future opportunities like getting into grad school or securing a job. 

internal (intrinsic) motivation that comes from inside you--love of the language, the sounds, internal curiosity 

that is learning just for learning's sake 

resulting from success (resultative) motivation is a result of the success you're had in learning the language 

(After the student has had time to think, repeat "the first, integrative...meaning a love of the culture," the 

second, "external which is more practical," the third, "internal, a love of the language," and the fourth, a 

result of your success.) 

 

2. Goal Modification 

a. I touched on this question in the first interview but more time has passed so I'll ask it again. Would you say 

that since the beginning of the semester you have any new goals or interests? 

b. (If they’ve modified their goals) How would you account for the change in your goal/interest? 

 

3. Additional Questions for Specific Students 

*3. (For apparent instrumental motivates) Parrot student’s response from the First Survey "Reason's" section 

for the following items: Career item number 9, study item 10, study a subject involving Portuguese item 19, 

grad/job candidate item 15. Then ask the following: 

a. This question is purposefully vague to avoid asking a more direct, leading-type question. When asked about 

your motivations for taking Portuguese, you responded that you were interested in _________________ (cite 

the career they mentioned). Yet if I went back one more step and asked why it is you are motivated to pursue 

this career in _________________, what would be your reason? 

b. (If response to question "a" is practical/instrumentally leaning, do a member check and continue to number 

4. If a's response appears rather intrinsic, ask) Would it safe to say then that though your motivations of 

_________________ (cite career again) for taking Portuguese appear rather practical and external to 

yourself, that in fact you have a more intrinsic motivation for doing _________________(cite career)? 

*4. If student was a continuer and some goals were unmet (Second Survey Continue Section item A17), but 

student's attributions were not due to own effort, ask: 

a. Your goals of _______ were not met to a very high degree this semester. How do you feel about that? 



Current Issues in Education Vol. 7 No. 4   
 

36 

b. It has not made you decide to discontinue. Why did this shortcoming not affect your decision to continue? 

c. Do you feel the goals were realistic? 

d. Some of your goals this semester went unmet. Some argue that students of a lesser commonly taught 

language like Portuguese are more frustrated if the class differs from what they expect because students of 

less commonly taught languages come in with specific things they want to accomplish. (pause because they 

may have a comment already.) Others argue they are more flexible as far as not being frustrated if the class 

differs from what they expect. Which, if either, would you say is a truer picture of you as a Portuguese 

student? 

*5. If had any exposure to Portuguese previously (First Survey background section number 11), ask: 

You mentioned in your survey that you had had exposure to Portuguese in ______. Did this exposure help you 

have more realistic expectations or was it misleading as far as expectations? 

*6. If student is a discontinuer and gave as a reasons that Portuguese is time-consuming (Second Survey 

Discontinue Section 9) or that their class load was too full (Second Survey Discontinue Section 12 ), ask: 

Some argue that lack of time, be it due to course load or other reasons, is somehow indicative of a lack of 

interest. In your particular situation, how would your respond to this. 

*7. (If Portuguese is not a requirement according to First Survey item 17) Will you have to stay in school any 

longer because you took Portuguese? 

*8. For students who on the first survey or in the first interview described Portuguese as "More difficult" than 

they had expected or said they had to study more than had thought (First Survey 23/ Second Survey 5/ First 

Interview number 13) 

You mentioned on your survey that Portuguese was more difficult than you expected. So how, if at all, did 

you have to modify? In other words, did you change your study habits to meet the higher level of difficulty? 

(Ask for specifics of those changes, if any). 

*9. If goals were modified (Second Survey Second Section) 

a. I noticed on your surveys that your goal(s) of _______________ increased as the semester went on. Why 

would you say that is the case? 

Prompt: What would you say was the source of these new interests or increased interest? 

b. If the following are true: 

 if student's goals were modified 

 if, in the first interview, the student gave a clear idea of what they felt the teacher's goals were 

 and if on the second survey goals section, the goals that increased in importance were those they felt 
the teacher emphasized, (look at First Interview question number 4 and Second Survey Second 

Section -see if similar to Teacher's), then ask: 

I noticed there was a similarity in the increased importance of your goal(s) of _______________. This goal is 

the same one you mentioned as a goal the teacher had for the class. How would you account for that-- is it just 

a coincidence? 



What do Students Expect to Learn?  

   

37 

 

4. Representative 

Do you consider yourself representative of your classmates? In other words are you similar to the other 

students or would you say you are different from them? 

 



Current Issues in Education Vol. 7 No. 4   
 

38 

2004 Article Citation 

Jernigan, C. G. (2004, May 4). What do students expect to learn? The role of learner expectancies, beliefs, and attributions 

for success and failure in student motivation.Current Issues in Education [On-line], 7(4). 

Available:http://cie.ed.asu.edu/volume7/number4/ 

 

Author Notes 

Christine Galbreath Jernigan, Ph.D Curriculum and Instruction: Foreign Language Education, holds research interests in 

student motivation and the affective factors that influence learning. She has taught critical thinking and research skills 

courses at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. She has also taught elementary and secondary teacher 

education at the University of Texas at Austin. She is currently writing a guidebook for parents raising their children to speak 

their second language. She can be contacted at christinejernigan@yahoo.com by email or (603)963-6488 by fax. 

 

 

Note from the 2011 Executive Editor, Lori Ellingford 

 

October 2, 2011. This article was first published at the original Current Issues in Education website, located at 

http://cie.asu.edu/articles/index.html. In 2009, CIE changed online platforms to deliver the journal at http://cie.asu.edu. The 

original CIE website is now only used as an archival repository for published articles prior to Volume 12. Efforts to make the 

current CIE website inclusive of past publications have necessitated the repurposing of this article into the published format 

you are viewing now.  

 

All content from the original publication has been preserved. No content edits occurred. Spelling, grammar, and mechanical 

errors that may be found were present in the original publication. The CIE logo and publisher information in use at the time 

of the article’s original publication is unaltered. 

 

Please direct questions about this article’s repurposing to lori.ellingford@asu.edu. Questions related to all other aspects of the 

journal may be addressed to cie@asu.edu. 

 

 

2011 Article Citation 

Jernigan, C. G. (2011). What do students expect to learn? The role of learner expectancies, beliefs, and attributions for 

success and failure in student motivation. Current Issues in Education, 7(4). Retrieved from 

http://cie.asu.edu/ojs/index.php/cieatasu/article/view/824 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

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