Perceived Academic Motivation and Learner Empowerment Levels of EFL Students in Turkish Context

Language learning has become one of the needs of humans to maintain communication in the globalized world. However, it is not an isolated process and confined to linguistic skills. It gets affected by a lot of affective factors and learners' beliefs. One of these elements is undoubtedly academic motivation, which makes language learning a more complete process, and it brings the sense of empowerment together. Therefore, the present study focuses on the academic motivation and learner empowerment from the students' perspectives and on the probable relationship between them. 150 vocational high school students who took English as a compulsory course constituted the participants of the study. The study used mixed methods research design. The quantitative data were gathered through Academic Motivation Scale and Learner Empowerment Scale. The qualitative data were obtained via open-ended questions. Both quantitative and qualitative data analysis methods were utilized. Quantitative data were analyzed through Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The qualitative data were subjected to the content analysis. As a result of the study, students appeared to have moderate level of academic motivation. Similarly, perceived learner empowerment was found to be at moderate level. The correlation between academic motivation and learner empowerment was positive. What is more, the findings indicated a statistically significant relationship between academic motivation and learner empowerment. Higher motivation could feed the sense of empowerment in learning English. The study aimed to provide insights and implications for instructors to build a supportive learning environment based on students' perceived academic motivation and learner empowerment levels.