Tipos de motivación académica en los estudiantes del B2 de inglés del Instituto de Idiomas de la Universidad de Cuenca en el periodo julio 2023 – febrero 2024

Abstract

Learning a second language is not easy, and students need to be motivated to persevere and achieve their goals; therefore, motivation will be taken into consideration as a factor that guides our actions and feelings to meet needs or achieve goals. Motivation includes extrinsic, intrinsic, and amotivation types; its role in English language learning determines the level of success in language mastery, especially among university students who are constantly undergoing academic training to enter a globalized job market and need the appropriate skills to navigate it. Faced with this issue, the objective of this research was to describe the type of motivation and its sub-scales in students from the intensive courses of level B2 at the Language Institute of the University of Cuenca. The research had a quantitative approach, non-experimental design, cross-sectional, and descriptive scope. The population consisted of 75 participants, including 33 men and 42 women, to whom the Academic Motivation Scale (AMS) (Stover et al., 2012) was applied, accompanied by a sociodemographic form. The results showed the predominance of intrinsic motivation (M= 79.42), suggesting that participants' motivation focuses on interest and enjoyment in the learning process. In conclusion, the results highlight the importance of promoting both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to foster meaningful and sustained learning of the English language at this academic level.