Medium of Instruction and Students’ Academic Motivation

Abstract

This quantitative study investigated the effect of the instructional medium (English or native Urdu) on academic motivation among 10th-grade students selected through a multi-stage sampling technique across 32 secondary schools from one district in Punjab, Pakistan. A validated Motivation Assessment Scale was administered to measure motivation dimensions like learning attitudes, effort, and goal commitment. For data analysis, SPSS 20 was used. Descriptive analysis found moderately high motivation levels across groups categorized by gender, locale, and medium of instruction. Inferential statistics using independent samples t-tests revealed no significant differences in motivation based on instructional language choice, indicating English and Urdu mediums elicit comparable engagement. However, urban English-medium students showed higher motivation than their Urdu-medium counterparts, while rural pupils were more motivated under mother tongue education. The study concludes complex sociocultural and pedagogical dynamics, rather than medium per se, shape students’ motivational outlooks. Recommendations include nurturing locale-specific best practices, gradual bilingual transitioning, progress feedback mechanisms, and parental partnerships to stimulate motivation uniformly across media of instruction. Further research should explore teacher-student relationships, bilingual approaches, parental perceptions, qualitative insights into urban-rural differences, and comparative analyses with regional language schools regarding their impact on motivation.