On the Relationship between Writing Proficiency and Instrumental/Integrative Motivation among Iranian IELTS Candidates

The present study aimed at making a comparison between integratively motivated IELTS candidates and their instrumentally motivated peers in terms of their proficiency. Moreover, the cohorts were compared based on their proficiency scores on IELTS Test. The participants were initially 245 Iranian IELTS candidates who had taken the actual IELTS test in Iran; in addition to that, a questionnaire by Laine (1987) was utilized to determine the type of motivation each participant possessed. The data made up two groups of 86 integrative and 110 instrumental candidates. Using the results obtained from the proficiency test, a one-way ANOVA was run. The results indicated there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups with regard to their proficiency. It therefore was concluded that the two cohorts stood at the same level of proficiency. Moreover, the statistical analyses, using one-way ANOVA, revealed there was no significant difference between the integratively oriented participants and instrumentally oriented ones as far as their writing performance exam was concerned.