Critique of a given research article - Essay Example

Critic of “Integrative Motivation in a Globalizing World” Article Task: Critic of “Integrative Motivation in a Globalizing World” ArticleThis article critics a research article authored by Martin Lamb about the integrative motivation in a globalizing world. It discusses the objectives of the writer, his study and methodology. Finally the article evaluates the writer’s analysis of data and his conclusions for their effectiveness at addressing the raised question. The evaluation found the research well informed through extensive evaluation of literature, however, the research did not exhaustively evaluate the question raised.

Lamb assessed the importance of integrative impetus in the study of English amongst students of varied cultures and groups. He evaluated the motivation of first year junior high learners in Indonesia in learning English. The researcher intended to conduct a longitudinal evaluation extending for two years. He attempted to identify changes in motivation and what learners do in and out of class (Lamb 2003, p. 5-6). To do this the researcher combined survey questionnaire with semi-structured interviews.

The focal group comprised of 12 individuals. The researcher, additionally, interacted with the learners to obtain qualitative data (Lamb 2003, p. 6-7). Lamb finally concluded that as English becomes adopted by many people, its learning becomes allied to conformity to globalization. Hence the motivation to learn it is dependent on identification. The extensive consultation of up to date literature enables him to evaluate relevant facets of the question. The use of focus group was prudent in finding a solution to conduction research in a multicultural context.

Focus groups are an efficient qualitative method providing access to information unavailable without interactions. It provided an avenue to discover indigenous language in order to decipher the learners understanding of phrases used in the questionnaire. However, he fails to identify the variation of focus group employed. Additionally, the researcher did not highlight the guidelines utilized in the selection of members, raising the issue of external validity. Without a representative selection, the results may be invalid.

The researcher identified the problems resulting from culture when administering a questionnaire in that they may not interpret the questions as intended by the researcher, he therefore responded to this by gathering qualitative data (Lamb 2003, p. 7). The interaction with the students helped increase the validity of the quantitative data collected through augmenting with qualitative data.From the responses on the liking of the learning of English, the researcher found out that all the students liked learning English (Lamb 2003, p. 9). Evaluating this conclusion demystifies it as vague.

The “liking” observed is not identified as either the liking for the process of learning English or the liking for the effects that result after learning English. These two phenomena are different. The liking for the process can be said to be genuine. The researcher fails to evaluate these two dissenting aspects from the concept “liking”.In the conclusion, the researcher talks of the role model of the Indonesian youth not being English speakers but Indonesian natives with a global identity (Lamb 2003, p. 12-13). Whereas this may be true, it is, however, not evaluated during the study and appears exclusively as the researcher’s opinion.

He concedes to this fact and acknowledges the fact that his study did not cover the process of identification. This is a major omission since the identification process is closely associated with motivation for language learning. The researcher’s conclusion that instrumental motivation is more common in Asian learners is supported by the data obtained in the study (Lamb 2003, p 9 table 2). This answers the research question satisfactorily, but the data is hardly general since the subject of the study was one school, in one country in the whole continent.

ReferenceLamb, M 2003, Integrative Motivation in a Globalizing world, Leeds: University of Leeds, viewed 1 January, .