The Emotional Underpinnings of Gardner’s Attitudes and Motivation Test Battery

Abstract

This chapter considers the affective dimension of Gardner’s socio-educational model and its associated Attitude/Motivation Test Battery (AMTB). Like many psychometrically sound instruments, the AMTB uses balanced item keying, which requires reversing scores on negatively worded items. Recent work on emotions, however, suggests that positive and negative emotions are not necessarily opposite ends of the same continuum (as is implied by balanced item keying), but two qualitatively different dimensions of experience with different functions and different thought–action tendencies. We report two empirical studies examining correlations between AMTB scales and a frequently used measure of positive and negative emotions (the PANAS). Study 1 involved 157 Chinese learners of English studying in China. Study 2 used data from an international web survey of 750 learners. The studies show considerable differences in AMTB scale means; however, both studies show remarkably consistent correlations between AMTB scales and individual emotions. Furthermore, regression analysis points to different patterns of prediction, more often implicating negative emotions in the Chinese sample and positive emotions in the international sample. The socio-educational model emphasizes attitudes as a driving force in the motivation system. The present data suggest emotional processes may underlie the attitudes that support motivation for language learning.