An Empirical Study on College Students’ Academic Writing Motivation in Sabah, Malaysia
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the academic writing motivation among 160 randomly chosen college students in Sabah, Malaysia using the 37-item Academic Writing Motivation Questionnaire. Kruskal-Wallis H test revealed no significant differences in college students’ academic writing motivation by way of ethnicity and age, while Mann-Whitney U test showed no significant differences in terms of gender. Wilcoxon signed rank test based on a hypothesized value of 3.5 revealed that 26 of the items were significant at p < .001. Moreover, a total of 11 items showed that their medians significantly differed from the test value and were likely to indicate strong agreement, while the other 15 items showed that their medians significantly differed from the test value and were likely to indicate strong disagreement. The overall mean score was 126, indicating that college students tended to have a low level of academic writing motivation. In light of the findings, some recommendations were made on ways to enhance their academic writing motivation.
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