Turkish Students’ Demotivation to Study English: A Scale Development

The purpose of this study is to develop a scale that reveals factors adversely affecting the university preparatory class students’ motivation for the English language and English language classes. The sample included 454 student participants. The researchers used a 6-point Likert-type scale with 50 items to collect the research data. The results of the exploratory factor analysis indicated that the scale has one factor having four-subcomponent factorial structure with 20 items. The subcomponents of the scale are 1) teacher characteristics, 2) lack of interest towards English and English classes, 3) class environment and class materials, and 4) experience of failure. Cronbach Alpha coefficient for the reliability of the scale was 0.911. Cronbach Alpha coefficients for the subcomponents were 0.847; 0.813; 0.780 and 0.768 respectively. The results of CFA indicated that factor structure fits the data. The scale is a reliable and a valid tool for measuring the factors demotivating the students in their language learning process.