A Research on the Relationship between the Freshmen’s English Learning Motivation and Achievements in a Chinese University

Motivation is one of the important affective factors influencing foreign language learning. This paper makes a quantitative analysis of freshmen’s English learning motivation from the perspectives of English achievements and gender differences. The correlation analysis shows that the subjects’ deep motivation correlates negatively with their surface motivation and their English achievements also correlate negatively with their surface motivation. One T-test shows the significant difference between the achievements of the high-score group and the low-score group. The high-score group’s deep motivation and surface motivation are both significantly different from the low-score group. The other T-test shows the female students’ surface motivation is lower and significantly different from the male students’. Finally, the paper offers some suggestions based on the results.