Understanding by Design (UbD) in EFL Teaching: The Investigation of Students’ Foreign Language Learning Motivation and Views

Abstract

In today’s world, where learning a foreign language is highly prioritized, it is an important prerequisite that education has components that are lasting, meaningful, and transferable to everyday life. Moreover, these components would have a positive influence on student motivation. The purpose of this study is to investigate students’ language learning motivation and views about integration of Understanding by Design (UbD) into their lessons. The study was carried out through mixed method research. For the quantitative part, pre-test post-test experimental design was carried out while action research was instrumented for the qualitative part of the study. 10 teachers and 436 students participated the study. Of the 436 students, 225 were in the treatment group and 211 were in the control group. Through the action research, 10 instructors who were trained about UbD, were divided into four groups, each of which designed three different unit plans and implemented them in their classes. As quantitative data collection tool, Motivation/Attitude Scale (MAS), which was developed by Dörnyei and adapted to Turkish by Mendi (2009) was used. For the qualitative data of the study, focus group interviews were held with 10 students. The quantitative data was analyzed through the analysis of covariance and independent samples t-test. The qualitative data was analyzed through content analysis. The quantitative results of the study indicated that there was a significant difference in A and B level students’ foreign language learning motivation in favor of the treatment group. The qualitative findings indicated that UbD implementation had a positive impact on students’ foreign language learning motivation and knowledge transfer skills. These findings underline the importance of foreign language motivation and providing students with experiential learning.