Covid-19 and distance learning: investigating the impact on motivation among Italian high school students learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL)

Abstract

The Coronavirus pandemic has spread across the globe during 2020, making massive changes in teaching and learning. Within 12 months, many countries have repeatedly announced the temporary closure of schools in order to contain the spread of Covid-19. One of the immediate measures adopted to ensure access to learning has included the transition to distance learning, a form of education which physically separates teachers and students in the process of teaching and learning. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the shift to distance learning has impacted motivation among students learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in two different high schools in Veneto, Italy. Research data were collected through a questionnaire administered to students attending a scientific and artistic high school. The questionnaire was in part adapted from the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (Pintrich, Smith, García, and McKeachie, 1991), based on a cognitive view of motivation. The aim was to assess students' goal orientations and value beliefs for learning English, their beliefs about their ability to succeed in this subject, their test anxiety, the impact of the class context and their social engagement in both traditional and online classes. Moreover, this paper sheds light on the main conceptualisations on motivation in mainstream psychological research and provides an overview on the role of motivation to learn foreign and second languages. Attention is also focused on distance learning and other debated topics, such as the role of language and second language acquisition.