A Mixed-methods Approach to Investigating Iranian EFL Learners’ Attitudes towards Academic Motivation in Learning Vocabulary

The present study aims at analyzing EFL learners’ attitudes towards motivating factors in learning vocabulary. A mixed-methods approach was used to conduct the study. In the qualitative analysis, Iranian EFL learners’ attitudes towards learning vocabulary were investigated through a semi-structured interview encompassing 36 participants. Subsequently, a 56-item ‘motivation for vo-cabulary questionnaire’ (MVQ) was devised by the researchers and administered to 70 language learners in the pilot study. However, the number of participants in the main study was 315. A factor analysis through the quantitative analysis extracted three motivating factors as learners’ expecta-tions factors, internal conditions of the learners’ factors, and learners’ satisfaction factors. The re-sults also indicated that, opportunities to use English, new technology, classroom activities, and teaching method were considered as the most significant motivating factors among Iranian EFL learners in learning vocabulary.