Japanese as a Heritage Language SIG

American Association of Teachers of JapaneseJapanese as a Heritage Language SIG e-journal Vol.2

2008（研究論文）アメリカ高校生日本語学習者動機づけに関する社会文化的考察(Research Article) Socio-Cultural Differences in U.S. High School Students’
Motivation to Learn the Japanese Language
楠正子 / Masako Nunn

カリフォルニア州立大学ノースリッジ校 / California State University, Northridge

Recommended Citation
Nunn, M. (2008). Socio-Cultural Differences in U.S. High School Students’ Motivation to Learn the Japanese Language. Japanese as a
Heritage Language Journal. 2, 1-24

Socio-Cultural Differences in U.S. High School Students’ Motivation to Learn
the Japanese Language
Masako Nunn
California State University, Northridge

1

Abstract
This study investigated motivational differences among three ethnic groups in learning
the Japanese language: Japanese heritage (JH) students (n = 135), Asian students (n = 69)
excluding JH students, and Caucasian students (n = 73). The investigation focused onunderstanding heritage- and non-heritage-related motivations (instrumental, integrative, intrinsic,
travel-related motivations), self-efficacy, and goal salience. The data were collected through aquestionnaire on 277 U.S. high school students learning the Japanese language. Multiple
statistical methods addressed two research questions exploring motivational differences.
Results indicated that the three ethnic groups had statistical differences in heritage-related
and intrinsic motivations. JH students showed the highest heritage-related motivation. Caucasian
students showed the highest intrinsic motivation, whereas JH students showed the least intrinsic
motivation. Both the JH and Asian groups showed that parental involvement correlated withJapanese language proficiency, whereas the Caucasian group showed no correlation. The
Caucasian group showed no significant correlation between goal salience and self-efficacy,whereas JH and Asian groups showed positive and significant correlation indicating that the
Caucasian students with high self-efficacy do not always have a clear goal or strategy. Teachers
and administrators may use the motivational findings to develop Japanese language programs tohelp students of different ethnic backgrounds.

Introduction
According to the 1998 Japan Foundation worldwide survey, young people, beginning in
the 1990s, started to show a new interest in learning Japanese, since encountering Japanese2subculture through animation and games (The Japan Foundation, 2003). Its survey in the UnitedStates indicated that 64.8% of Japanese language learners were elementary- and secondary-level
students, whereas 23.0% were university students. Of the Japanese language learners, 12.2%
were from non-school-related institutions such as foreign language schools.

This survey

indicates that Japanese language educators and researchers need to pay more attention topedagogy and theory for these young Japanese learners.
East Asian language researchers (Saito & Samimy, 1996; Sung & Padilla, 1998)
emphasized the importance of motivation for their success and prominence due to thecomplication of less commonly taught languages. The socio-cultural researchers (e.g., Au, 1988)
claimed ethnic and cultural differences mediate children’s motivational beliefs since the diverse
backgrounds of immigrants and their degree of acculturations impact their perspectives on
motivational orientations of learning foreign language (FL) and second language (L2).
Therefore, an understanding of the motivational factors in learning the Japanese language forlearners from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds in a socio-cultural perspective contributes
to the development of a more effective curriculum and detailed instruction that conform to thestudents’ backgrounds.

Literature Review
Valdés (2000) defined the “heritage speaker” as “a student who is raised in a home wherea non-English language is spoken, who speaks or merely understands the heritage, and who is tosome degree bilingual in English and the heritage” (The UCLA Steering Committee, p. 477).
Besides professional careers that foreign language learners strive for, HL learners have uniquemotivations, such as parents’ expectations for their children to preserve their mother tongue,3

reaffirmation of ethnic identity, and speaking with their relatives (Sung & Padilla, 1998).
Heritage-related motivation in this study relates to students’ ethnic background and parental
support or involvement (hereafter, H-P motivation).
Non-heritage-related motivations in this study consist of instrumental, integrative, travelrelated, and intrinsic motivations. First, Gardner and Lambert (1972) proposed instrumental
orientation and integrative orientation in language learning motivation. The former involves
learning the target language for a practical purpose in order to gain a benefit from acquiring thetarget language. The latter reflects the “individual’s willingness and interest in social interaction
with members of other groups” (Gardner & MacIntyre, 1993, p. 159). Travel-related motivationrefers to a desire to not only travel or but also live in the places in which the target language isspoken. According to Deci and Ryan (1985), intrinsic motivation refers to the motivation to
engage in an activity because that activity is enjoyable and satisfying to do. They (1985) claimed
that self-made choice motivated people to challenge the situation, control their outcomes, anddevelop a sense of competence in their ability; therefore, intrinsic motivation is correlated with
self-made choice, thus contributing to students’ competence. However, many researchers (e.g.,
Deci & Ryan, 1985) pointed out that personal choice is mediated by culture (as cited in Iyengar& DeVoe, 2003). Self-efficacy is referred to as people’s explicit judgments of their capabilities
such as having specific skills instead of merely a self-recognition of being good in the subject(Bandura, 1986). The higher the students’ self-efficacy, the more they sustain motivation andimprove skills (Pintrinch & Schunk, 1996). The study by Seijts and Latham (2005) showed thatthe participant’s high self-efficacy was positively and significantly related to better performance.
However, conducting a survey of 150 college students enrolled in Chinese language classes inSouthern California, Chen (2002) claimed that the theory of self-efficacy might not be applicable4to Asian heritage students and their achievement. The result showed that Asian-American
students, even with lower levels of self-efficacy beliefs than Caucasian counterparts,
outperformed Caucasian students on the achievement tasks. Goal salience in this study refers to
the goal setting theory of Locke and Latham (1990) claiming that individuals with specific andchallenging goals outperform individuals with nonspecific (“do my best”). In acquisition of FL
and L2, Tremblay and Gardner (1995) developed goal salience into two scales: Goal Specificity
and Goal Strategy. Goal specificity means whether students have specific goals in their FL/L2
course. Goal Strategy refers to how well students set goals for themselves such as by making
plans.
The purpose of this study was to provide a better understanding of the motivational
factors influencing the three ethnic groups of Japanese language learners at the high school level:(a) Japanese heritage (JH) learners, (b) Asian learners excluding JH learners who learn Japanese
as a foreign language (hereafter, Asians), and (c) Caucasian learners. Then, the present study
posed two questions: (a) Do differences exist in aspects of motivation among JH, Asian, andCaucasian learners of Japanese? (b) Do differences exist in the relative contributions of H-Prelated motivation, non-heritage-related motivation self-efficacy, and goal salience to Japanese
language learning?

Methodology
Participants and Procedures
Two hundred seventy-seven high school students enrolled in United States (Hawaii, New
York, Texas, and Southern California) Japanese language classes participated in this study in fallsemester 2004. Subjects were divided into three categories based upon their ethnic membership:5

Japanese heritage students (n = 135), Asian students (n = 69), and Caucasians (n = 73). In thisstudy, “Asian students” refer to Asians who were not Japanese-American students such as
Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Taiwanese. “Caucasians” refer to Caucasians, Hispanic,
African American, and American Indian. In the JH group, five subcategories were identified as
the students of 1st generation (n = 1), 2nd generation (n = 48), 3rd generation (n = 31), 4th
generation (n = 18), and mixed parents (n = 37). The sample consisted of 154 (55.6%) females
and 123 (44%) males. It should be noted that the participants added the “4th generation” in theJapanese American section in the ethnic background on the survey even though there was not asection for this category.
Information was collected through student questionnaires. The teachers distributed thepackets to students who took them home. Each packet included a parental consent form andsurvey. Later, teachers collected the packets and mailed them to the researcher.
Instruments
The self-reported survey consisted of two parts: (a) students’ background and Japanese
language proficiency (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) and (b) motivational
information: H-P-related and non-heritage-related motivations, self-efficacy, and goal salience.
The motivational information questionnaire consisted of 50 questions. Items were adapted fromvarious instruments used. The questions of integrative (items 1 to 6), instrumental (items 7 to 9),
H-P motivation (items 10 to 15), and travel-related (items 16 to 20) motivations were adapted by
the University of Kansas faculty of East Asian languages based on motivational research. The
alpha coefficients for integrative, instrumental,

H-P-related,

and travel

motivations

were .79, .70, .89, and .79, respectively. Intrinsic motivation (items 21 to 26) was adapted fromthe National Foreign Language Resource Center/Second Language Teaching and Curriculum

6

Center at the University of Hawaii at Mãnoa (Schmidt, Boraie, & Kassabgy, 1996) and the
Cronbach alpha coefficient was .84. The questions of self-efficacy consisted of eight items, 27
through 34, and the alpha coefficient was .89. Items 27 to 31 were adapted from the Motivated
Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) developed by Pintrich and Schunk (1996). Items
32 through 34 were selected from Malpass’ dissertation (1994). Items 35 through 50 wereadapted from Tremblay and Gardner (1995).

They developed two scales of motivational

behavior in Goal Salience: Specificity (8 items from 35 to 41) and Strategy (8 items from 42 to50). The median of the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient reliabilities for all scales was above .70.
A 7-point Likert scale was used for all motivational question items except for 6 items
regarding intrinsic motivation (5-point Likert scale). Self-assessment of Japanese language
proficiency was adopted from several researchers such as Clark (1981), Lambert (1990), and Lee(2002). The Cronbach alpha coefficient for the total Japanese proficiency was .92.
Some items were modified to match Japanese language and culture context sincequestionnaire items regarding motivations were studies on students learning a second language
or a foreign language.

Results and Discussion
Motivational Differences among Japanese Heritage, Asian, and Caucasian Groups
Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics of the three groups (JH, Asian, and Caucasiangroups).

7

Table 1. Means and Standard Deviations of H-P and Non-Heritage-Related Motivations by JH,
Asian, and Caucasian Students

Factors
H-P-related
Integrative
Travel-related
Instrumental
Intrinsic
Self-efficacy
Goal salienceJH(n = 135)
M
SD
27.11
6.48
30.27
6.85
15.73
6.04
25.67
5.94
20.80
4.71
39.71
10.54
30.58
7.69

Asian
(n = 69)
M
SD
12.81
6.23
30.40
7.08
16.58
5.63
26.90
5.06
22.93
4.01
38.93
10.08
32.06
7.65

Caucasian(n = 73)
M
SD
13.25
5.32
31.47
6.14
17.04
6.56
26.60
5.45
24.85
3.97
43.91
8.70
32.57
8.41

Even though the Likert scale of intrinsic motivation (1 to 5) was different from others (1 to 7),
correlations standardized the data. One-way ANOVAs were administered to determine thedifferences among the three groups in H-P-related, integrative, travel-related, instrumental, andintrinsic motivations. The results of the one-way ANOVA procedure indicate significant meandifferences for at least a pair of group means for H-P-related and intrinsic motivations, F(2, 274)
= 181.98, p < .001; F(2, 274) = 21.12, p < .001; however, there are no significant differences ofmeans for integrative, travel-related, and instrumental motivations.
Heritage-related motivation. Table 2 shows that JH students have the highest H-Prelated motivation (M = 27.11, SD = 6.48) and are significantly different from Asians (M = 12.81,
SD = 6.23) and Caucasians (M = 13.25, SD = 5.32). First, compared to Asian and Caucasiangroups, as expected, JH students take a Japanese class for heritage-related reasons, such as “I
would like to converse with my immediate family and relatives.” They want to communicate
better with their grandparents who do not speak English. This finding confirms the report fromseveral motivational studies about East Asian language learners such as Korean, Chinese, andJapanese learners (Sung & Padilla, 1998). Sung and Padilla found that the most significant

8variable for East Asian language learners was heritage-related motivation and parental
involvement.
Table 2. (One-Way ANOVA) H-P Motivation: Means, Standard Deviations, and Rank (N =
277)
Group
JH students
Asian students
Caucasian students

n
135
69
73

Mean
27.11
12.81
13.25

SD
6.48
6.23
5.32

Rank
1
3
2

Intrinsic motivation. The results of one-way ANOVA also show that the Caucasiangroup has the highest intrinsic motivation (M = 24.85, SD = 3.97) and are significantly different
from the JH group (M = 20.80, SD = 4.71) and the Asian group (M = 22.93, SD = 4.01).
Caucasian students are statistically higher in intrinsic motivation than JH students. JH students
demonstrated the lowest intrinsic motivation (see Table 3).
Table 3. (One-Way ANOVA) Intrinsic Motivation: Means, Standard Deviations, and Rank (N =
277)
Group
JH students
Asian students
Caucasian students

n
135
69
73

Mean
20.80
22.93
24.85

SD
4.71
4.01
3.97

Rank
3
2
1

Among the three ethnic groups, Caucasian students enjoy learning the Japanese language
the most. Intrinsic motivation plays an important role among Caucasian students to learn
Japanese language. On the other hand, JH students report that they do not enjoy the challenge ofstudying Japanese language. There are a couple of possible reasons for this. First, as in Chen’s
study (2002) with the sample of Chinese heritage students, the Japanese language demands lesstime, challenge, and effort compared with other foreign languages for JH students; therefore, it
9can be assumed that a Japanese language class offered as a foreign language course at regularhigh school is easy and boring for them. Second, JH students take a Japanese language class due
to parental coercion or choice; therefore, it can be inferred that JH students are passively taking a
Japanese class, whereas Caucasian students enjoy learning the language, not just taking it out ofparental encouragement or choice. Oketani (1996) gathered the information about the JH highschool students’ attitude towards Saturday Japanese school. Her report showed that only 25% ofthem go to supplementary school because they want to continue to study Japanese and 55% ofthem reported (a) because my parents encouraged me to go and (b) because I would like to talkwith my friends. Asian American students are more influenced by their parents’ desire forsuccess than their non-Asian counterparts (Reglin & Adams, 1990).
The results of this study also showed that they do not enjoy using Japanese language
outside of class as much as Caucasian students. It might be assumed that JH students take it for
granted to use Japanese language due to their social environment in Japanese language contact
outside of class, such as using Japanese language with family members and relatives; therefore,
Japanese language use outside of class is not a matter of whether they enjoy speaking Japanese
language or not. Rather, using Japanese language might be simply a tool for JH students tocommunicate with non-English speaking family members (Chen, 2002; Nakajima, 1998; Sung &Padilla, 1998).
This study reports that the percentages of Japanese language spoken among family
members in JH, Asian, and Caucasian groups were 69%, 2%, and 4%, respectively. This result
accords with heritage language educators’ and researchers’ perspectives claiming that HLlearners generally, though not always, have some functional proficiency in their ancestrallanguage through interactions with family members and friends (Campbell & Rosenthal, 2000).

10

Table 4 in the next section clearly indicates the significant differences in Japanese language
proficiency among the JH, Asian, and Caucasian groups.
Among the students of the JH subgroups (the 2nd, 3rd, 4th generations and mixed parents),
intrinsic motivation showed no significant difference (Nunn, 2005). In addition, this study showsno significant relationship between Japanese language proficiency and intrinsic motivation in theabove JH subgroups. This study also shows that all subgroups of the JH students (the 2nd, 3rd, 4th
generations and mixed parents) had negative correlations with the question item, “Is Japanese a
spoken language among your family?” The JH students of the 3rd, 4th, and mixed parents showeda nonsignificant negative predictor (r = -.13, p = 14; r = -.24, p = .35; r = -.09, p = .59,
respectively). However, the 2nd generation indicates the statistically negative significance in thecorrelation (r = -.42, p < .05). The more the JH students speak Japanese language with family
members, the less they enjoy learning Japanese, especially the 2nd generation.
Overall, JH students do not enjoy learning Japanese as much as Asian and Caucasian
students. This study indicates that Asian and Caucasian students, especially Caucasian students,
enjoy learning a Japanese language because they want to study it. Taking a Japanese language istheir choice rather than a parental coercion. It can be inferred from this result that JH students
passively take Japanese classes.
This study also indicates that Caucasians take a Japanese class based upon self-madechoices that correlate with intrinsic motivation among Euro-American students (Deci & Ryan,
1985). The result of this study accords with the previous research by Iyengar and Lepper (1999)
who claimed that European-American students demonstrated more intrinsic motivation when
they made their own choices than when others made choices for them. Iyengar and Lepper
examined Asian- and European-American children (7- to 9-year-olds) who were asked to either

11choose an activity for themselves or be told that someone else would choose for them. Asian
Americans were mainly motivated and performed best when their mothers made the selection forthem, whereas European-Americans did not do as well when others made the choice for them.
The social and cultural factors influence personal choice; therefore they mediate intrinsic
motivation.
Differences exist in H-P-related motivation and intrinsic motivations among JH, Asian,and Caucasian learners of the Japanese language.
Motivations and Japanese Language Learning
In order to discover differences among the three ethnic groups of how selected variables(H-P-related, non-heritage-related motivations, self-efficacy, and goal salience) relate toJapanese language learning, correlations were administered in each ethnic group.
Table 4 shows statistical differences in all four skills and total proficiency between JH
and Asian groups (listening, t = 5.57, p < .001; speaking, t = 3.62, p < .001; reading, t = 4.07, p< .001; writing, t = 3.64, p < .001; total proficiency, t = 4.80, p <. 001).

Table 4. Means and Standard Deviations of Japanese Language Proficiency of JH and AsianGroupsListening
Speaking
Reading
Writing
Total proficiency*p < .05. **p < .001.

JH(n = 135)
MSD
3.42**
1.02
2.98**
1.06
2.65**
1.13
2.81**
1.06
2.99**
1.05

Asian(n = 69)
M
2.64**
2.47**
2.09**
2.23**
2.38**

SD
.82
1.04
.95
1.00
.95

12

On the other hand, as seen in Table 5, only two skills (listening and reading) show
statistical differences between the JH and Caucasian groups (listening, t = 2.71, p < .05; reading,t = 2.02, p <. 05).

Table 5. Means and Standard Deviations of Japanese Language Proficiency of JH and CaucasianGroupsListening
Speaking
Reading
Writing
Total proficiency

JH(n = 135)
M
SD
3.42*
1.02
2.98
1.06
2.65*
1.13
2.81
1.06
2.99
1.05

Caucasian(n = 73)
M
SD
3.05*
.81
2.80
1.11
2.38*
1.02
2.75
1.64
2.75
1.15

*p < .05. **p < .001.

The results of this study indicate that Japanese language use among family members reflects
upon JH students’ listening skill (Nakajima, 1998). As for a reading skill, years of studying a
Japanese language might affect a JH student’s reading skill since development of literacy skills
in non-alphabetical languages such as Japanese and Arabic requires many hours of instruction,
especially Chinese characters (Nakajima, 1998). This study reports that the averages of years ofstudying a Japanese language in JH, Asian, and Caucasian groups are 6 years, 1.5 years, and 1.5
years, respectively. It can be also assumed that JH students have more opportunities to readJapanese comic books and newspapers due to the availability of Japanese language literacy athome. In this study, JH students rated their reading ability in comic books and newspapers
statistically different from Caucasian students (t = 2.12, p <. 05; t = 2.33, p <. 05, respectively).
In light of the socio-cultural perspective, comparing JH and Asian groups andconsidering that Asian students in this study might have Japanese descendants, it might be13

inferred that Asian students lack self-confidence.

Furthermore, it can be assumed that JH

students also might lack self-confidence in Japanese language skills showing no significant
difference in output skills compared to Caucasian group in spite of their longer years of Japanese
language study and more frequent use of Japanese language among family members than
Caucasian students (see the report on the average years of studying a Japanese language in theabove). On the other hand, Caucasian students might have higher self-efficacy in learning theJapanese language than Asian students (Nunn, 2005). University of California, Los Angeles
conducted the HL survey on campus in the fall quarter of 1999 regarding a study of heritage
languages. They reported that many HL students suffer from lack of confidence and pride in
their HL linguistic skills in spite of their longer years of HL study and more frequent use of HLamong family members than non-HL students.
The results of this study accord with the Kondo-Brown’s study (2005) indicating thesignificant difference in listening and reading skills between Japanese heritage language (JHL)
learners and Japanese foreign language (JFL) learners using both proficiency tests and selfassessment measures in Japanese language skills.

She investigated the differences of 185

learners between JHL and JFL. The age of the participants was 17–22 years old. KondoBrown’s finding showed that the group of JH students with at least one Japanese-speaking parent
proved to be substantially different from JF learners group in listening and reading skills whereas
JH learners with at least one Japanese-speaking grandparent but without a Japanese-speaking
parent showed striking similarities with the JF learners. Among the JH students in this study,
64% of them are 1st and 2nd generations of Japanese and students of mixed parents; therefore, it
can be assumed that at least one parent of these Japanese-American students speaks Japanese14whereas the parents of the 3rd and the 4th generations of Japanese (36%) more likely might not
speak Japanese.
Many researchers (Au, 1988; Rueda & Dembo, 1995) claim the differences of selfefficacy between Asian students and non-Asian students mediate children’s beliefs; therefore, theaccuracy of a self-report may vary due to socio-cultural differences. However, it can be said thatthe self-assessments in this study are fairly reliable and valid due to the high alpha coefficient on
the total Japanese proficiency (α = .92), in addition to the accordance of the result of KondoBrown’s study (2005).
The results of this study show that Japanese language proficiency positively andsignificantly correlates with H-P-related motivation in JH (r = .30, p < .001) and Asian (r = .44,
p < .001) groups indicating that parents of JH and Asian students have a significant impact on
their children’s Japanese language proficiency (see Tables 6 and 7). On the other hand, theCaucasian group does not show significant correlation between H-P-related motivation andJapanese language proficiency (r = .07) (see Table 8).
In relationship with Japanese language proficiency, both JH and Asian groups show
positive and significant correlations with all other variables (H-P-related, non-heritage-related
motivations, self-efficacy, and goal salience) (see Tables 6 and 7). On the other hand, theCaucasian group shows no significant correlation between H-P-related motivation and Japanese
language proficiency (r = .07) (see Table 8). The JH and Asian groups show positive andsignificant correlations between H-P-related motivation and self-efficacy with the same
correlational coefficient (r = .45, p < .001) whereas the Caucasian group shows no statisticallysignificant correlation (r = -.01). Furthermore, goal salience does not correlate with Japanese
language proficiency among Caucasian students (r = .18).

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Table 6. Correlations of Japanese Language Proficiency, H-P, Non-Heritage-Related, SelfEfficacy, and Goal Salience for the JH Group (n = 135)

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Variable
H-P motivation
Non-heritage-related
Self-efficacy
Goal salience
Japanese language proficiency

1
--

2
.56**
--

3
.45**
.52**
--

4
.34**
.51**
.29**
--

5
.30**
.39**
.34**
.16*
--

*p < .05. **p < .001.

Table 7. Correlations of Japanese Language Proficiency, H-P, Non-Heritage-Related, SelfEfficacy, and Goal Salience for the Asian Group (n = 63)

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Variable
H-P motivation
Non-heritage-related
Self-efficacy
Goal salience
Japanese language proficiency

1
--

2
.43**
--

3
.45**
.55**
--

4
.46**
.50**
.35**
--

5
.44**
.31*
.31*
.28*
--

*p < .05. **p < .001.

Table 8. Correlations of Japanese Language Proficiency, H-P, Non-Heritage-Related, SelfEfficacy, and Goal Salience for the Caucasian Group (n = 73)

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Variable
H-P motivation
Non-heritage-related
Self-efficacy
Goal salience
Japanese language proficiency

1
--

2
.31*
--

3
-.01
.54**
--

4
.05
.49**
.17
--

5
.07
.38**
.27*
.18
--

*p < .05. **p < .001.

The Caucasian group does not show significant correlation between goal salience andself-efficacy (r = .17) in this study, even though many researchers in the study of predominantly
Euro-American students claimed that goal setting is closely related to self-efficacy (Locke &Latham, 1990). The reason for this discrepancy cannot be inferred from the data of this study.

16

On the contrary, the JH and Asian groups show positive and significant correlation between
these variables (JH, r = .29, p < .001; Asian, r = .35, p < .001). This indicates that Caucasian
students who have high self-efficacy do not always have a clear goal or strategy in Japanese
language learning.

Many researchers noted the importance of self-efficacy in academic

performance (e.g., Bandura, 1986). This study also shows that self-efficacy positively andsignificantly correlates with Japanese language proficiency across ethnic differences.
The correlational matrices of the three ethnic groups reconfirm that socio-culturaldifferences exist in motivations. First, as expected, Asian students show more similarities to JH
students than Caucasians in motivational variables associated with H-P-related motivation. JH
and Asian students are encouraged by their parents and gain more confidence, so that parental
supports have a positive influence on self-efficacy for JH and Asian students. JH and Asiangroups tend to be influenced by their parents and gain parental benefit in intrinsic motivation
whereas parents of the Caucasian group do not have an effect on whether their children enjoy
learning the Japanese language or not.

Caucasian students are rather more motivatedintrinsically with self-made choice without parental advice. Thus, self-made choice contributes
to Caucasian students’ competence which accords with the previous findings by several
researchers (e.g., Deci & Ryan, 1985).
From this study, it can be inferred that parental support and encouragement of JH andAsian students must be more significant in intrinsic motivation, self-efficacy, goal salience, andJapanese language proficiency than those of Caucasian students. Asian American students are
more influenced by their parents’ desire for success than are their non-Asian counterparts(Reglin & Adams, 1990). Further, the report from Catsambis and Garland (1997) showed thatparental educational aspiration of Asian parents for their child is higher than that of non-Asian

17

parents. Asian-American parents hold higher expectations for their children (Peng & Wright,
1994). In addition, teenagers of Caucasians are more independent than those of JH and Asians.
On the other hand, a child who is inferior in a traditional Japanese family relationship becomes
dependent to a supporting partner (his/her parent) (Lebra, 1976); therefore, a Japanese childtends to rely on parental support and encouragement.
The findings of this study show that differences exist in the relative contributions ofmotivation, self-efficacy, and goal salience in Japanese language learning among the three ethnic
groups (Japanese heritage, Asian, and Caucasian). This study reveals that motivational theories
of foreign language learning, particularly Japanese language learning, are not always universally
applicable; therefore, ethnic differences need to be considered in motivational studies (e.g.,
Iyengar & Lepper, 1999).

Conclusions and Future Research
The diverse backgrounds of immigrants and their degree of acculturations impact theirperspectives on motivational orientations of learning FL/L2 (Au, 1988). This study investigatedhow JH, Asian, and Caucasian students of Japanese language classes differ in motivational
beliefs from the socio-cultural aspect.
This research focused on understanding H-P-related and non-heritage-related motivations,self-efficacy, and goal salience. The results of this study indicated that the three ethnic groups
significantly differ in H-P-related and intrinsic motivations. Furthermore, JH and Asian students
showed the importance of H-P-related motivation indicating positive and significant correlations
with non-heritage-related motivation, self-efficacy, goal salience, and Japanese language
proficiency. On the other hand, the Caucasian group does not show significant correlation18

between self-efficacy and H-P-related motivation indicating that parental support of Caucasian
students does not have a significant influence on their self-confidence in Japanese language
learning. Non-heritage-related motivation and self-efficacy play an important role in Japanese
language proficiency among Caucasian students.
The findings of this study present the following implications.

First, the results

demonstrated that diverse ethnic groups differed in the types of motivational beliefs andexplained the behavior of Japanese language acquisition. The differences of motivational beliefs
in the groups could have resulted from their ethnic and family cultural backgrounds, i.e., sociocultural adaptations (Rueda & Dembo, 1995).
This study provided useful information about motivational beliefs for teachers andadministrators to better understand how students from diverse ethnic backgrounds differed inJapanese language learning, thus helping them continue in a Japanese language program.
However, some recommendations in future research can be made. First, even though someresearchers (e.g., Douglas, 2002; Kondo, 1999) have developed some curricula which consider
the differences of ethnic background, curriculum, and instructions that adapt to socio-culturaldifferences, these curricula need to be developed further based on research and theory.
Considerations should address the diversity of Japanese language learners based not only on
differences in ethnicity but also on differences within groups: for example, (a) different
generations within the JH group; (b) Anglo, Hispanic, and African American students within the
Caucasian group; and (c) Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese, and Vietnamese within the Asian group.
Second, objective assessments such as tests and quizzes would add more reliability and validity
in analyzing the data. Furthermore, to observe and analyze students’ motivations in greater
detail, a case study can be conducted. Using a “triangulation” method (testing data sets obtained

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from multiple sources such as interviews, observations, and surveys) is one way of gaining
reliability and validity of the data.
In summary, this study reaffirmed the value of taking into consideration motivational
beliefs in the language acquisition process and also suggested that students from the three ethnic
groups perceive the Japanese language and the purposes of its acquisition differently. Instructors
need to be aware of these differences when applying motivational constructs to enhance
students’ motivation of Japanese language acquisition.

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