Indonesian University Students’ Demotivation in Learning English as
a Foreign Language
Puput Nur Khofifah and Rusfandi
English Education Department, Universitas Kanjuruhan Malang
Keywords: Demotivation, English as a Foreign Language.
Abstract: Investigating EFL learners’ demotivation is essential since the results provide feedbacks in better helping
the learners to study English. The institutions providing English teaching and learning also benefit from the
results of such research as they relate to how the institutions improve learning resources available in the
institutions. Despite its usefulness, however, there are still limited studies about EFL students’ demotivation
particularly within Indonesian contexts. The purpose of this research is to investigate factors affecting
demotivation of English department students of a private university in Indonesia. A questionnaire was
distributed to 124 participants from different intake years surveying their perception on factors decreasing
their motivation. The results show that five factors affected the participants’ demotivation: non-
communicative methods, facilities, test scores, course books, and teachers’ competence and teaching styles.
From the five factors identified, non-communicative methods used by the lecturers, facilities, and test scores
were the dominant factors lowering the students’ motivation. Lecturers’ competence and teaching styles
provided the least influence on the students’ motivation. These findings indicate that teaching methods and
strategies used by the lecturers and facilities hold a significant role in maintaining the students’ motivation
in studying English.
1 INTRODUCTION
Demotivation refers to “specific external forces that
reduce or diminish the motivational basis of a
behavioral intention or an ongoing action” (Dörnyei,
2001, p. 143). Factors such as lack of facilities and
difficulty levels of the given materials could affect
and reduce the students’ motivation. It should be
emphasized here that demotivation does not mean
that students’ motivation loses completely. Instead,
there are factors that obstruct or hinder their
motivation to function positively (Hemmatizad et
al., 2015).
Researching students’ demotivation is essential
as the results could help English as a Foreign
Language (EFL) teachers like in Indonesia to
minimize their students’ demotivation in order to get
better outcomes in learning English. A demotivated
student could influence other students in a classroom
and therefore, would decrease the effectiveness of
teaching and learning process. The results of this
kind of research offer practical significance for EFL
teachers in order to deal with unmotivated learners.
The results are also beneficial for English teaching
providers or institution particularly on how to
provide support and facilities for both teachers and
students in achieving better outcomes in the teaching
and learning process.
Several studies have been done investigating
students’ demotivation in learning. A study
conducted by Falout and Maruyama (2004), for
example, surveyed 164 students from science-based
departments attending a non-credit supplementary
English course. The students were divided into
higher proficiency and lower proficiency groups.
The study found that disappointment in
performance, course content, and teachers were the
dominant factors lowering the students’ motivation
in learning English especially with the lower English
proficiency group.
Another study was done by Gorham and
Christophel (1992). They tried to determine what
factors causing demotivation for university students.
The findings show that teacher-related factors
accounted for seventy nine percent from all the
responses. Christophel and Gorham (1995) used the
same questionnaire to investigate demotivating
factors among another group of college students.
The results were consistent with the previous
findings. Gorham and Millette (1997) administered a
508
Khofifah, P. and Rusfandi, .
Indonesian University Students’ Demotivation in Learning English as a Foreign Language.
In Proceedings of the Annual Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities (ANCOSH 2018) - Revitalization of Local Wisdom in Global and Competitive Era, pages 508-514
ISBN: 978-989-758-343-8
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved

further investigation based on Gorham’s previous
research. Their findings show that the students
attributed more of their demotivation to teacher
behavior, such as poor presentational skills, and lack
of enthusiasm.
The results of the previous studies indicate that
teacher related factors are among the main factors
decreasing the students’ motivation. However, in
those studies the participants were from diverse
major backgrounds (generally science background)
and not specifically English as a foreign or second
language background. The first study was conducted
in Japan employing science background students and
the second study was done in the USA with diverse
background with the majority science related majors.
Possible different findings could be found if the
study conducted using English as a foreign or
second language majors. For example, the results of
the findings by Falout and Maruyama (2004) seem
to be unsurprising because the participants were
from science related background and were taking
English as a non-credit supplementary course. The
case could be different if the participants were from
ESL or EFL teaching background.
For the reason above, the aim of the present
study is to fill the gap by investigating the
demotivating factors experienced by Indonesian
university students who are taking EFL as their
major in a private university in Malang. Although
people could easily assume that the students must
have good motivation as they take English as their
major, it could not be the case especially with the
longer year students. Various external factors could
demotivate the students in learning English. The
results of this study could, therefore, offer
implication for lecturers and decision makers in the
university on how to maintain their students’
motivation and provide better facilities and
management to achieve better outcome.
1.1 Factors Affecting Students’
Demotivation
Motivation is essential as it relates to students’
interest, enthusiasm and achievement in learning a
foreign language. Demotivation is the opposite of
motivation. According to Dörnyei (2001),
Demotivation is “specific external forces that reduce
or diminish the motivational basis of a behavioral
intention or an ongoing action” (p. 143). Based on
the definition, demotivated students do not lose their
motivation completely. Rather, there are factors
which obstruct or hinder the students’ motivation to
function optimally (Hemmatizad et al., 2015).
Teacher competence, for example, could be a
common demotivating factor for students in learning
English because an incompetence teacher will
confuse his/her students and make the students
cannot achieve learning outcome optimally.
Demotivation has direct negative implications
for teaching and learning process. A demotivated
student could influence other students in a negative
way, for example, by spreading negative feeling,
enthusiasm, and classroom efficiency during the
teaching and learning process (Dörnyei and
Murphey, 2003). For this reason, teachers should
provide consideration on their students’
demotivation by focusing on how to minimize their
demotivation in order to get better outcomes in
learning English.
Several factors could potentially decrease
students’ motivation. In their study, Sakai and
Kikuchi (2009) surveyed potential demotivating
factors of Japanese university students in learning
English. The findings extracted five main
demotivating factors. Those are course books,
school facilities, test scores, non-communicative
methods, and teachers’ competence and teaching
styles. Course books can be a potential source for
demotivation if they were too long and topics were
not interesting. Inadequate teaching and learning
facilities such as the internet, audio and visual
equipment can also demotivate students especially if
they are not used appropriately to support teaching
and learning process. Another factor is test scores.
Students achieving low scores in tests provided by
teachers have possibilities to experience low
motivation especially it happens repeatedly. The
next factor is non-communicative methods used by
teachers in teaching especially with those which
cannot provide ample opportunities for the students
to communicate in English. Finally, teachers’
competence and teaching styles also promote
students’ demotivation. Teachers’ inability to be a
good model for using English such as poor
pronunciation and the teachers’ higher frequencies
in using one-way explanation, etc. have also
potentials to decrease the students’ motivation in
learning English.
Other perspectives of possible students’
demotivating factors in learning English are also
given by Dörnyei (1998) based on his research. He
studied demotivation among Hungarian secondary
school students and identified eight possible
demotivating factors for the students in learning
English. Those factors (1) include teachers’
attributes such as their personalities and
commitment, (2) schools related factors such as
class sizes and inappropriate level of classes, (3) low
levels of learners’ self-confidence, (4) learners’
negative attitudes toward the learned foreign
language, (5) learners’ compulsion to study the
foreign language, (6) interference of another foreign
Indonesian University Students’ Demotivation in Learning English as a Foreign Language
509

language that learners’ is studying, (7) learners’
attitudes toward the learned language community,
(8) learners’ peer attitudes, and (9) the course books
being used. It seems clear from the mentioned
factors above that Dörnyei (1998) includes both
internal and external factors which may contribute to
students’ demotivation in his study.
For the reasons of practicality and similarity of
the characteristics of the participants between the
present study (Indonesian learners of EFL and Sakai
and Kikuchi’s (2009) study (Japanese learners of
EFL), the present study focuses only on the possible
external factors contributing to Indonesian EFL
learners’ demotivation as outlined by Sakai and
Kikuchi above. However, unlike their study in which
the participants have relatively diverse major
backgrounds (international relation, English
literature, and economics and management), the
present research employs English education major
participants only but from different year intakes. The
study is meant to identify the main and least
demotivating factors for the students in learning
English.
2 METHODS
2.1 Participants
The present study was conducted in a private
university in Malang Indonesia employing students
of English education department from four different
year intakes, i.e., 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016. The
reason for employing students from different year
intakes is that length of study may influence the
levels of the students’ demotivation. It is possible
that students’ in their first year will have high
motivation as they have positive considerations
before deciding to take English as their major.
Meanwhile, the motivation of the students who have
been studying in their second, third, or fourth years
may have changed along the years because of both
internal and external factors. The other reason is that
to collect data that are supposedly able to represent
all English education department students in the
university. In total, 124 students participated in the
study which consisted of 31 students for each intake
year.
An adapted and translated version of
questionnaire developed by Sakai and Kikuchi
(2009, p. 202) was used to collect the data. The
questionnaire consisted of 25 items, and they were
classified into five categories representing the five
demotivation factors based on the study by Sakai
and Kikuchi (2009) which include course book,
learning and teaching facilities, test scores, non-
communicative methods, and teachers’ competence
and teaching style. To assess the participants’
personal attitudes toward demotivation, the
questionnaire was developed using Likert scale. The
questionnaire was also piloted to other students who
were not employed as participants in order to get
feedback in terms of the readability of the
questionnaire items. The questionnaire was
distributed in classes by collaborating with the
lecturers. The participants took about 15 to 20
minutes to complete the questionnaire.
2.2 Data Analysis
The participants’ responses were analyzed in terms
of the frequency and percentage of each
questionnaire item. They were then categorized
based on the five demotivation factors which were
adapted from Sakai and Kikuchi (2009, p. 202). For
the reason of practicality, the calculation of
frequency and percentage of each questionnaire item
would be more focused on two answers of Likert
scales: Agree (A) and Strongly Agree (SA). This
decision was taken because these two answers were
basically the ones representing the participants’
demotivation.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
3.1 Factors Affecting Demotivation
From the participants’ responses, course books,
facilities, test scores, non-communicative methods,
and teachers’ competence and teaching styles all
affected the participants’ demotivation in learning
English. In terms of the orders, non-communicative
method used by the lecturers is the most dominant
factor lowering the participants’ motivation followed
by facilities and test scores respectively. Course
book also contributes almost 20% to the
participants’ demotivation. Meanwhile, teachers’
competence and teaching style provides just little
negative influence on decreasing the participants’
motivation which is 6%. Table 1 shows the
frequency and percentage of the five demotivation
factors based on the participants’ responses. In order
to understand aspects belonging to each
demotivation factor, results of specific questionnaire
items within each factor will be described and
discussed.
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510

Table 1: Frequency and percentage of demotivation
factors.
Factor and
Questionnaire Item
Number
Agree
Strongly
A
g
ree
F %
F F
Factor 1. Course Boo
k
1 59 5 64
17
6 22 2 24
11 32 10 42
16 23 1 24
21 19 2 21
Total 155 20 175
Factor 2. Facilities
2 28 2 30
26
7 26 31 57
12 55 13 68
17 48 5 53
22 42 7 49
Total 199 58 257
Factor 3. Test Score
3 31 8 39
24
8 39 2 41
13 47 5 52
18 37 10 47
23 52 5 57
Total 206 30 236
Factor 4. Non-communicative Methods
4 24 6 30
27
9 77 16 93
14 35 11 46
19 21 7 28
24 55 14 69
Total 212 54 266
Factor 5. Teacher's Competence and Teaching Style
5 12 5 17
6
10 10 1 11
15 13 2 15
20 5 0 5
25 10 1 11
Total 50 9 59
TOTAL 993 100
3.2 Non-communicative Methods
As a whole, non-communicative methods used by
the lecturers accounted for 27% of the demotivation
experienced by the participants. Table 2 presents the
frequency and percentage of the participants’
responses to the questionnaire items belong to non-
communicative method factor. In this factor, item
number 9 ‘A great number of textbooks and
supplementary material were assigned for self-study’
is the greatest contributor for the participants’
demotivation in learning English in the department
which accounted about 75%. More than half of the
participants reported that they were afraid of making
mistake when speaking English. Grammar-focused
instruction, limited chance to communicate in
English, and lecturers’ frequent one-way explanation
in teaching and learning process also contributed to
the participants’ demotivation, but each affected less
than 40%
Table 2: Frequency and percentage of the participants’
responses to the questionnaire items belong to non-
communicative method factor (N=124).
Q. Item
No
A
g
ree Stron
g
l
y
A
g
ree
F %
F%F%
4 24 20 6 5 30 24
9 77 62 16 13 93 75
14 35 28 11 9 46 37
19 21 17 7 6 28 22
24 55 45 14 11 69 56
TOTAL 212 34 54 9 266 27
3.3 Facilities
Lack of teaching and learning facility is the second
highest factor decreasing the participants’
motivation in learning English which accounted
more than 25%. As presented in Table 3, among the
five aspects within this factor, limited use of visual
materials, the internet, and audio materials each
contributed more than 40% of the participants’
demotivation in learning English. Limited use of
language laboratory is also another aspect which
affected negatively the students’ motivation and
contributed about 40% for their demotivation.
Limited use of LCD equipment was also reported by
the participants to be another aspect which decreased
their motivation, but it just accounted for less than
25%.
Table 3: Frequency and percentage of the participants’
responses to the questionnaire items belong to facility
factor (N=124).
Q. Item
No
A
g
ree Stron
g
l
y
A
g
ree
F %
F%F%
2 28 22 2 2 30 24
7 26 21 31 25 57 46
12 55 44 13 10 68 55
17 48 39 5 4 53 43
22 42 34 7 6 49 39
TOTAL 199 32 58 9 257 26
3.4 Test Score
The frequency and percentage of the questionnaire
items belong to test score factor is presented in
Table 4. Within this factor, participants’ confusion
Indonesian University Students’ Demotivation in Learning English as a Foreign Language
511

with grammar is the highest contributor to the
participants’ demotivation with 45%. It is then
followed by their difficulty in memorizing words
and phrases and poor listening comprehension about
40% respectively. The rests (items number 8 and 3)
provided about 30%, a relatively high negative
influence on the participants’ demotivation.
Table 4: Frequency and percentage of the participants’
responses to the questionnaire items belong to test scores
(N=124).
Q. Item
No
Agree Strongly Agree
F %
F % F %
3 31 25 8 7 39 31
8 39 31 2 2 41 33
13 47 38 5 4 52 42
18 37 30 10 8 47 38
23 52 42 5 4 57 46
TOTAL 206 33 30 5 236 24
3.5 Course Book
In general, course book factor affected 17% to the
participants’ demotivation in the English
department. Long passages in the text books and the
participants’ difficulty to understand English
sentences are the most frequent aspects lowering
their motivation within this factor which accounted
about 50% and 34% respectively. The other three
aspects (i.e., uninteresting topics, old topics, and
mismatch culture topics) also provide negative
influence on the participants’ motivation at around
20%. Detailed frequency and percentage of the
aspects included within course book factor is
presented in Table 5.
Table 5: Frequency and percentage of the participants’
responses to the questionnaire items belong to course book
(N=124).
Q. Item
No
Agree Strongly Agree
F %
F % F %
1 59 48 5 4 64 52
6 22 18 2 1 24 19
11 32 26 10 8 42 34
16 23 19 1 1 24 19
21 19 15 2 2 21 17
TOTAL 155 25 20 3 175 17
3.6 Teachers’ Competence and
Teaching Styles
As shown in Table 6, students’ difficulty in
understanding their lecturers’ explanation and the
inappropriateness of pace lessons are two major
contributing to the participants’ demotivation which
accounted about 10%. The other aspects such as
lecturers’ negative attitudes during teaching and
learning process affected less than 10% on the
participants’ demotivation. Finally, punishment
surprisingly gave just little influence on the students’
demotivation which is less than 5%.
Table 4: Frequency and percentage of the participants’
responses to the questionnaire items belong to teachers’
competence and teaching style (N=124).
Q. Item
No
A
g
ree Stron
g
l
y
A
g
ree
F %
F%F%
5 12 10 5 4 17 14
10 10 8 1 1 11 9
15 13 10 2 2 15 12
20 5 4 0 0 5 4
25 10 8 1 1 11 9
TOTAL 50 8 9 1 59 6
The previous section has shown that non-
communicative method, university facility, and test
score factors are the major demotivating factors for
the English department students. Course book factor
just moderately affects the students’ motivation,
while teachers’ competence and teaching style factor
contributes slightly the students’ demotivation.
Non-communicative methods used by lecturers
become the largest contributor to the students’
demotivation. It perhaps relates to the status of
English as a foreign language in Indonesia. The only
opportunity for the students to get exposure to
English is in the English department particularly in
their classrooms because they usually do not get
exposure to English outside the classrooms. For this
reason, they expect much that their English
classrooms are able to provide them opportunities to
use and maximum exposure to English. However,
what they experienced in the classrooms is that the
lecturers dominantly used grammar-focused
instruction and one-way explanation or
communication as shown by the results of the
survey. Because of the grammar-focused instruction,
they were afraid of making mistakes and therefore
affected their motivation. Similar finding was also
obtained by Sakai and Kikuchi (2009). They also
found that teachers’ non-communicative teaching
methods are the most dominant factor contributing
to the Japanese English learners’ demotivation.
Similar to Indonesia, English is still a foreign
language in Japan.
The second largest demotivating factor is facility
owned by the English department. This finding is
not surprising because facilities surely have
significant roles for the effectiveness of teaching and
learning process. The same result was found by
Jomairi (2011) in Iran. He came to a conclusion that
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512

lack of facilities creates unfavorable L2 learning
environment, and therefore, university or department
should provide English classes facilities such as
video projectors, etc. in order to enhance the L2
learners’ teaching and learning process. When the
facilities are lack, students cannot learn English
properly. Thus, the lack of facilities can demotivate
the students in learning English.
Test score is also another main contributor of
the students’ demotivation in the present study. The
students’ demotivation very much related to the
students’ unsatisfactory performance in classroom
and final exams. When the students did not achieve
high scores, they tended to develop the feeling of
envy to their friends, particularly those who
achieved high scores. This situation obviously could
demotivate them in learning. This result corresponds
to that found by Jomairi (2011). He also identified
that low test score is one the demotivating factors for
Iranian undergraduate students majoring in English
in his study. By getting low test scores, students
would feel more stressful and dislike English
lessons. This similar finding is perhaps because the
lecturers’ assessment toward the students in the
present study and Jomairi’s (2011) study has not
been holistic. It means that some lecturers in the
English department where this was conducted
usually assess the students only from their final
exams excluding the students’ daily assignments and
performances. As a result, it discourages the
students, and they will lose their motivation to learn
English.
Although course book factor just moderately
affects the students’ motivation in the present study,
the use of course books should be properly taken
into consideration. Students’ motivation can
decrease because they experience boring lessons,
have lengthy English lessons, and read uninteresting
text books. Limited materials available are also
possible reasons behind the decreasing of students’
motivation. As often the case, students or even
teachers or lecturers only have one compulsory
course book for each course. Accordingly, students
get limited knowledge, activities, and exercises that
will enhance their understanding about the course.
Lecturers’ competence and teaching style factor
provided little influence on the students’
demotivation in the present study. This means that
based on the students’ responses, the lecturers’
competence and teaching styles have been
appropriate enough so that these gave just little
influence on the students’ demotivation. In terms of
education, data from the English department reveal
that all the lecturers have already had their master
degree in English language teaching and applied
linguistics. Some of the lecturers have even already
received their doctoral degree, and about 80% of
them have been certified by Indonesian Ministry of
Higher Education and Research.
In terms of orders, results of the present study
are somewhat different from the findings of some
previous studies. A study by Gorham and
Christophel (1992), for example, found that among
different factors investigated, teachers’ behaviors
had the most important role in students’
demotivation. Zhang (2007), who investigated
demotivation among students in china, Germany,
Japan, and America, identified that teacher factor is
the most dominant factor affecting the lowering of
students’ demotivation. This dissimilarity could be
because of different contexts of study, for example
ESL or EFL, type and quality of university,
department, or classes, participants’ English
proficiency, major of study, etc. For this reason,
future studies should address the interconnection of
these factors to students’ demotivation. In addition,
interview should be incorporated as instrument in
future research in order to gain deeper insight into
demotivating factors.
4 CONCLUSIONS
This study found five demotivation factors for
the students in their EFL learning: non-
communicative methods, university facilities, test
scores, course books and teachers’ competence and
teaching styles. From the five factors, non-
communicative methods, university facilities, and
test scores are factors behind their learning
demotivation accounted for almost 80%. Meanwhile,
the other 20% are shared between course book factor
and teachers’ competence and teaching style factor
which provide moderate and minimal influences on
the students’ demotivation respectively.
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