Learners' awareness of how their motivational states align with task demands is referred to as Metamotivation (Scholer & Miele, 2016). Despite its importance in promoting candidates' performance in test tasks, this emergent approach is still underexplored in the field of language assessment. While prior research on language assessment has focused extensively on test-taking strategies (see e.g. Cohen, 2006), little is known about how learners monitor, regulate, and make sense of their motivation while undertaking EFL reading test tasks. Metamotivational research advances such knowledge by exploring motivation regulation (monitoring and controlling) in testing conditions in order to gain deeper insights into how much motivation they have (quantity) and the type of motivation they are experiencing (quality) (Miele et al., 2020).
Notably, there is also a lack of qualitative studies examining how learners perceive and manage their motivation in assessment contexts. Grounded in regulatory focus theory, this study aims to fill such gap in research by investigating how Saudi English language students regulate their motivation while engaging in reading test tasks and how do they make sense of their promotion- and prevention-oriented motivational experiences after completing these tasks. Data will be collected in this qualitative study from 12 students through think-aloud protocols and stimulated recall interviews. Findings are expected to shed light into the dynamic interplay between metamotivation and test performance, thereby enriching the theoretical accounts of metamotivation in language assessment contexts.

Authors:
Ahmad Alsagoafi, King Faisal University, Saudi Arabia

About the Presenter(s)
Dr. Alsagoafi is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of English at King Faisal University in Saudi Arabia.

Connect on Linkedin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahmad-alsagoafi-348190111/

See this presentation on the full schedule – Saturday Schedule

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