Sosyal Bilimler Lisesi Öğrencilerinin İngilizce Öğrenme Motivasyonlarını Azaltan Faktörler Demotivational Factors Towards Learning English for the Students of Social Sciences High School

Demotivation plays a key role in foreign language learning. However, studies in this field mostly focused on the factors influencing the learners’ motivation positively instead of the factors causing demotivation. In this regard, this study aims to identify the sources of demotivation towards learning English for the students of social sciences high schools. For this study, data was collected by means of Demotivation Scale developed by Sakai and Kikuchi (2009). 4073 students, chosen according to the stratified sampling method, compose the sample of the study. As a result of the research, it is found out that the main source of demotivation in English classes among students is factors related to class environment. It is also observed that course materials are as effective as characteristics of class on student demotivation towards English. While factors related to experience of failure was the forth source of demotivation for students, teacher related factors are found to be the weakest demotivator. Furthermore, as a result of this study, it is revealed that there is a correlation between demotivation and gender, academic level and proficiency.


INTRODUCTION
It is proven that motivation is one of the key indicators determining the proficiency of foreign language learning (Warden & Lin, 2000). Therefore, investigating the factors that influence learner motivation is significant in foreign language teaching. As a result, many researchers have focused on the motivation and looked for the possible ways influencing learners positively (Dörnyei, 1994). However, there are also factors impeding willingness of learners towards foreign language learning and causing failure in English language profiency. The negative side of motivation, termed as demotivation, has recently attracted attention of educationalists and researchers (Ghanizadeh ve Jahedizadeh, 2015).
In order to spark interest in language learners, what discourages learners to be motivated towards learning foreign language needs to be taken into consideration. In this sense, Christophel and Gorham (1995) found the absence of demotivation has stronger impact on students' motivation than the presence of motivation. Hence, the demotivators having a detrimental effect on motivation are as important as the motivators. Even in some cases, demotivation may be a prequisite to motivate students towards foreign language learning. Despite this significance of demotivation, it is paid little attention by researchers in comparison to motivation.

What is Demotivation?
Likewise motivating factors, there are also demotivators that inhibit learning motivation of students. These factors may cause learners to be have poor proficiency in foreign language learning. The notion of demotivation is relatively new in the field of foreign language teaching and has not been investigated as much as motivation, yet.
Demotivation was broadly conceptualized as any force which diminishes pupils' willingness and desire to learn or as lack of an urge which encourages them to make an effort (Zhang, 2007). The sources of these forces can vary. It may stem from student, teacher or environment related factors. No matter what the source of demotivation is, it is assumed understanding and eliminating demotivators from the teaching situations, a more effective atmosphere to teach English can be created in the classes.
According to Dörnyei (2001), three types of negative influences cannot be viewed as the demotivational factors. First of all, such distractors as listening to music instead of studying, are not demotivators because they do not have a negative impact like demotivators. Furthermore, they do not decrease the motivation. Instead, they can be labeled as attractive options which attract learners' attention and consequently may interrupt the actual ac-tion. Secondly, losing interest gradually in a long-continued activity cannot be determined as a demotivator since it doesn't stem from a particular incident. Finally, sudden realizations of the costs of an ongoing activity cannot be among the sources of demotivation. For instance, discovering how difficult and tiring it is to studying for an university exam while working throughout the day results from deliberation not from external processes. Chambers (1993) also defines demotivation in his terms. According to him, the main characteristics of demotivated students can be listed below. He or she: However, from this and other definitions of demotivation, it shouldn't be confused with no motivation because demotivation is not the antonmy of motivation rather another side of motivation. Demotivation is differ from amotivation, which is a term widely used in self-determination theory and can be viewed as total loss of motivation (Ryan and Deci, 2002). According to Dörnyei (2001), amotivated learners don't find it meaningful to study a foreign language. In some cases, they can also believe that they can not learn a foreign language due to their capacities. In other words, amotivation results from unrealistic general views and anticipations whereas demotivation is related to specific external influences. If demotivators aren't identified and removed from the language learning environment, in time, demotivation may end up with amotivation. In short, several experiences of demotivation for students can cause amotivation.

The Role of Demotivation in Foreign Language Learning
Demotivation isn't solely seen in students with low proficiency in English. It also occurs, for instance, when a highly motivated student's motivation decreases to an average level for some reasons. According to Kim (2009) for students having different proficiency levels in English at different levels of proficiency sources of demotivation varies. For instance, in one study conducted with the participation of 900 university students with different English language proficiencies, learners responded to a questionnaire measuring English language proficiency as well as their views about demotivational factors in foreign language classes (Falout, Elwood and Hood, 2009). The results of this study showed that students with poor mastery in English were demotivated by such internal factors as lack of self-confidence, little or no instrinct motivation while more proficient students were demotivated by such external factors as method used in the class, lesson style. Hence, all students regardless of their proficiency may experience demotivation in language learning processes; however, the sources of demotivation may differ.
Studies carried out on demotivation in foreign language learning has revealed different types of demotivators. Although these demotivators differ according to such variables as the background of the participants, country, it is possible to group them under some categories. When the related literature is reviewed, the salient demotivator affecting students is seen teacher related factors (Arai, 2004;Chambers, 1993;Dörnyei, 1998;Hamada & Kito, 2008;Kikuchi, 2009;Trang & Baldauff, 2007). The competency and background knowledge of the teacher, the personality, the method used in the class may affect students motivation towards learning English.
It is a known fact that classroom climate influences students demotivation to some degree (Arai, 2004;Christophel & Gorham, 1995;Dörnyei, 1998;Kim, 2009;Sakai & Kikuchi, 2009;Sharififar & Akzarbadeh, 2011). In this regard, the quality of the relationship between student-teacher and student-student is among the sources of demotivation. While learning environment which fosters cooperation between peers are increasing students' motivation, competative based lessons cause demotivation among students (Dörnyei, 1998).
The materials used in the classroom have also impact on students' motivation. It is plausible to say that coursebooks are the main source used during the lesson. In this regard, results of some researches indicate that coursebooks demotivates students more than the method used in the class and the personality of the teacher (Hamada, 2008;Sakai ve Kikuchi, 2009). Apart from coursebooks, no access to the internet and lack of computer assisted lessons are among the salient demotivators for students in English language learning (Heidari ve Oghli, 2015).
When the related literature is reviewed, it can be concluded that characteristics and the nature of the course may cause demotivation among students (Arai, 2004;Chambers, 1993;Christophel & Gorham, 1995;Falout & Maruyama, 2004;Hamada, 2008Hamada, , 2011Hamada & Kito, 2008;Sakai & Kikuchi, 2009). Furthermore, experience of failure and lack of the feeling of success have a crucial role in predicting motivation of students. Getting low marks from the exams, falling behind the peers may lead students to feel disappointed and make little or no effort.
The impact of aforementioned factors on students may differ; however, determining these factors and removing them from classroom instructions will pave the way for motivation. Although it is not realistic to claim that high motivation will directly bring success, it can be said that demotivation or lack of motivation hinders academic success of students (Williams, Mercer and Ryan, 2015). Therefore, being aware of the demotivational factors affecting students towards learning English and removing them from learning environment has utmost importance to get the expected outputs from English teaching contexts.

METHOD
The aim, target population and sample of the study are introduced in this part. Furthermore, information related to the data collection tools and data analysis process are given.

Aim
The purposes of the study are to identify demotivational factors for the students of social sciences high school in Turkey and to provide suggestions for reducing demotivating factors in learning contexts. In this regard, the research questions for the study are as follows: 1. To what extend the demotivational factors related to teachers, characteristics of the classes, experiences of failure, class environment, class materials and lack of interest affect students?
2. What are the salient demotivating factors in learning English for students?
3. Does the demotivational factors differ significantly according to the gender, educational level and grade point average (GPA) of students?
28,82 % of the participants study at 9 th grade (n=1174) while 31,82% of them are 10 th (n=1296) and 24,63 % of them are 11 th grade students (n=1003). When academic performance of the students are examined according to English grades in 2016-2017 educational year, it is observed that 7,16 % of the students has got low grades while 53,58% of them has got medium grades and 39,18% of them has got high grades.

Data Collection Tools and Data Analysis
To collect data, personal information form and demotivation scale developed by Sakai and Kikuchi (2009) were employed. The demotivation scale consists of 35 items measuring six constructs by means of a 5-point Likert scale. The scale gauges six sources of demotivaton: teachers (6 items), characteristics of classes (7 items), class materials (6 items), lack of interest (4 items) and experience of failure (5 items).
Validity and realibility of the scale was carried out by Sakai and Kikuchi (2009), however, within the scope of current study, analysis for realibility was carried out by the researchers. Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient for the scale was calculated to determine the internal-consistency reliability and for all six demotivators it was found .87 regarding 35 items.
In this study, data was collected online. In addition to the items of the scale, participant were required to give such demographic information as region, gender, educational level. They were also asked to write their grade point average (GPA) on the questionnaires as the indication of their language achievement.
After data collection process, all data was examined and incorrect or missing data was extracted from the research and responses of 4073 students were analyzed through Statistical Programme for Social Sciences 22.0. In order to identitfy types of parametric or non-parametric tests to be utilized in the analysis, data distribution was checked. In testing normality assumption, Kolmogorov-Smirnov was examined and found to be significant. Based on normality assumption testing, parametric tests were utilized.
In order to describe the main features of the collected data, descriptive statistics were utilized depending on the research questions. In this regard, in order to identitfy to what extend the demotivational factors affect students, means and standard deviation were calculated for the students' responses.
In order to find out whether demotivational factors differ significantly according to the gender t-tests were employed while and a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to investigate the significant differences in demotivating factors among students with different academic levels and GPAs. Since ANOVA just indicates whether there is an overall difference among the groups, multi comparision (post-hoc) tests are run to identify direction of the differences between groups. Within the scope of this research, when the equality of variances was assured, Scheffe was used. In case that equal variances were not assumed, Tamhane was utilized in order to identitfy the sources of differences.

Comparisons of the Demotivational Factors
The Demotivation Scale consists of factors contributing to learners' demotivation. The factors concerned are namely teachers, characteristics of the classes, experiences of failure, class environment, class materials and lack of interest. Whether six factors affect students' demotivation differently in terms of participants' responses were examined through analyzing mean ( ) and standard deviation (SD) of each factor. The impact of each factor on learners' demotivation was summarized in Table 1. Maximum score to be gathered from the scale is 5 while the minimum is 1. Therefore, each sub-dimension got the score ranging from 2.40 to 2.82.
The results demonstrated that among the demotivators, the factors related to class environment ( X =2.82) have the most influence on students' demotivation based on the mean scores. Factors related to class materials ( X =2.81) have almost the same mean as class environment and can be considered as a strong source of demotivation as class environment. The third strongest demotivator for students is related to characteristics of classes ( X =2.79) while experiences of failure ( X =2.69) comes in the X X fourth rank. According to the views of the students, lack of interest ( X =2.63) is the fifth factor affecting their demotivation. Finally, it is concluded that factors related to teacher ( X =2.40) is the weakest source of demotivation for students among six subdimensions. As a result, it is found out that the main source of demotivation towards learning English among students is factors related to class environment but not the ones related to teachers because they were found to have the least impact on learners' demotivation. When table 2 is examined, it is seen that the means of the items range from 3,49 to 2.16. Considering the evaluation range of 5-point-Likert used in this research, it can be claimed that items 2,9,11,12,14,15,18,21,26,27,28,32 are not seen as demotivators by students since the means of these items are between 1.81 and 2.61 which shows students disagree with the statement.

Salient Demotivational Factors According to Each Sub-Dimension
As it mentioned before, factors related to class environment were identified as the strongest source of demotivation by students. Under this sub-dimension, being lack of language lab at school (item 24) was considered as the salient demotivating factor ( X = 3.49). Negative attitudes of classmates towards English (item 29) and not making use of visuals (item 22) were also regarded relatively more demotivating for the students in the class environment sub-dimension.
As for the course materials sub-dimension, which almost has the same mean score in total as the class environment subdimension, factors stated by item 16 and 19 were found to be more demotivating for students. In other words, uninteresting topics of English passages ( X = 3.20) and too much assignments ( X = 2.94) were regarded as the salient demotivational factors by students.
In terms of characteristics of classes, students thought that most of the lessons focused on grammar (item 3) and this made them demotivated towards learning English the most ( X = 3.29) . In line with this finding, students perceived being lack of enough chance to communicate in English (item 1) as the second strong demotivator ( X = 2.85). Additionally, being expected to use grammatically correct English was considered one of the salient factors by students impeding their motivation ( X = 2.84). When these three findings are taken together, it can be claimed that the more communicative the nature of the course is, the more motivated the learners are and vice versa.
According to students, factors related to experiences of failure have also effects on their demotivation. In this regard, having difficulty in memorizing words and phrases (item 7) was found to be the most demotivating item ( X = 2.95). In addition to this, getting low scores on tests (item 8) and being compared with their friends (item 30) led students to feel more demotivated towards English learning.
When the responses of students given to the items about lack of interest were examined, it is seen that items 33 and 34 were the leading sources of demotivation. As it can be seen in table 2, these two items got the same mean score ( X = 2.71). Therefore, it can be concluded that for students losing interest and their goal to be a speaker of English were considered as the most powerful demotivators under this sub-dimension.
As mentioned earlier, factors related to teacher were regarded as the weakest demotivators by students among the others. When the items under this sub-dimension were examined seperately, some factors were perceived as demotivators by the participant students, though. In this regard, items 10 and 13 were found to be the only demotivating factors for students about their teachers. In other words, students stated that inapproriate pace of the lesson ( X = 2.72) and one-way explanations made by teachers ( X = 2.68) caused demotivation for them.

Learner Demotivation According to Gender, Academic Level and GPA
Whether average scores of sub-dimensions' of Demotivation Scale differ according to gender was analyzed with t-test method for independent groups. The results are presented in Table 3.  Table 3 is considered, a statisticly meaningful difference in the level of p<0.05 is observed in all of the sub-dimensions of the demotivation scale towards learning English in terms of gender. It has been revealed that male students have a higher mean score in all six dimensions than female students do. In this regard, it can be concluded that factors related to teacher, characteristics of class, experience of failure, class environment, class materials and lack of interest have much more demotivating impact on male students than female students.
To asses any differences among sources of demotivation in terms of sub-dimensions among students of 9 th , 10 th and 11 th grades, one-way ANOVA was employed. After ANOVA test, in order to identitfy from which group the meaningful difference stems, multiple comparison tests were performed. Whether variances were equal or not was controlled by means of Levene test. When equal distribution was assumed, Scheffe was utilized. If variances are unequal, Tamhane was run. The results of the analysis are illustrated in Table 4. As it is revealed in the Table 4, apart from experiences of failure, there exists a significant difference among all sub-dimensions according to the academic levels of students. In other words, significant differences were found among the groups for subdimension 1 (Teacher), 2 (Characteristics of Class), 4 (Class Environment), 5 (Course Materials) and 6 (Lack of Interest). No group differences were found for sub-dimension 3 (Experiences of Failure).
As a result of the variance analysis on demotivational factors according to different academic levels, it is revealed that the mean score of 9 th grade students is significantly lower than that of 10 th grade students in each sub-dimensions. Likewise, the mean score of 10 th grade students is significantly lower than that of 11 th grade students in each sub-dimensions. In line with this, it can be concluded that the factors related to teacher, characteristics of classes, experince of failure, class environment, course materials and lack of interest are becoming more demotivating for students as they are qualified for the next academic level.
To asses any differences among sources of demotivation in terms of sub-dimensions among students with different GPAs, oneway ANOVA was employed. The results of the analysis are presented in Table 5.  Table 5 is examined, a significant difference was found in all sub-dimensions according to the last year's GPAs of students. In this regard, it can be concluded that factors related to teacher, characteristics of classes, experince of failure, class environment, course materials and lack of interest demotivate students with low GPAs more than students with low GPAs.

CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSIONS
Determining and eliminating the factors impeding learners from foreign language learning is crucial to reach the expected outcomes in the are of foreign language teaching. Therefore, in this study, demotivational factors towards learning English for the students of social sciences high schools were investigated. It is indicated from the analysis of the data that the salient demotivators for the students are related to the class environment and course materials. In other words, being lack of of language lab, negative attitudes of classmates towards English, not making use of audial and visual materials such as pictures, videos and alike, uninteresting texts in the coursebooks and overloaded homework were seen as the strongest sources of demotivation by students. Factors related to teacher were found to be the weakest demotivator as a result of this study although it is the most powerful one in most of the studies in the literature (Bahramy ve Araghy, 2013;Chambers, 1999;Dörnyei, 1998;Hasegawa, 2004;Muhonen, 2004;Oxford, 1998;Sakai ve Kikuchi, 2009;Zhang 2007). It is significant that the results of a research (Çankaya, 2018) conducted in Turkey as well, have in common in terms of the strongest and weakest demotivating factors for students.
Another finding of this study reveals that all the factors studied within the scope of this study have much more demotivating impact on male students than females. In this regard, it can be said that this study substantiates other studies in the literature (Lee and Lee, 2011;Williams, Burden and Lanvers, 2002).
The findings also demonstrated a negative relationship between students' academic level and demotivation. In other words, students are getting more demotivated as they are qualified for the next academic level. In this regard, Hamada (2008) puts forth demotivation generally tends to start in the second year of junior high school, which supports this finding.
Finally, it was revealed that demotivation negatively predicted achievement of students. It implies that if learners' level of demotivation is low, their GPAs which indicate students' success will be high. The results are consistent with the previous studies (Falout, Elwood and Hood, 2009;Falout and Maruyama 2004;Lee and Lee, 2011;Özer and Korkmaz, 2016).

SUGGESTIONS
The results of the present study reveals the sources of student demotivation and its effect on gender, student academic level and achievement. These findings have significant implications for ELT. First of all, it is up to the teachers to determine the sources of demotivation in their class and find out the ways to eliminate them so that their students can be remotivated to learn English. Additionally, English teachers should be aware of the fact that gender, academic level and GPA affect students' demotivation and they should adapt learning environment, course materials and teaching methodologies accordingly.
Taking the findings of this study into consideration, it can be suggested that teachers should have knowledge about motivational strategies of learners, make use of authentic, visual and audial materials in their lessons more than they do. They should integrate English courses with technology and finally, taking individual differences into consideration they should make every students experience the feeling of success in his/her own level and assign them meaningful, short-term homework.
As for the policy makers, it can be recommended in the light of the findings that rotating class system or language laboratories can be carried into practice, English course books can be revised in a way that they will contain more about the culture of the target language and interesting topic activities. It is also thought to be beneficial for teachers that in-service trainings related to new trends and approaches in English language teaching especially communicative language teaching should be given to them periodically. Furthermore, students' performances about language skills should be evaluated discretely in their report cards.
This study is limited to number of factors. First, the participant of present study composed of students of social sciences high schools. Thus, it can be extended with the participation of other high school types. Second, a questionnaire was used within the scope of this study and no qualitative methods were applied for. Thirdly, in the present study, demotivation was investigated according to such variables as gender, academic level and GPA. Therefore, the other variables such as burn out, self-confidence, personal qualites etc. can be further studied.