The Effects of STAD Method on Chinese Students’ Motivation in Learning English Communicative Competence

Many studies revealed that students have difficulties in learning English communicative competence and some are even resistant in learning the language. This study aimed to examine the effects of the STAD method in students’ motivation towards learning English communicative competence. The study adopted a quasi-experimental design lasting for 8 weeks which compared the performance between the Experimental Group taught using the STAD method and the Control Group taught using the conventional method. The sample were 80 first-year non -English major students from two polytechnic colleges in Guangdong, China. The samples were chosen as intact-groups (40 students in the Experimental Group and 40 students in the Control Group). The questionnaire on learning motivation was adapted from Keller’s ARCS model. The questionnaire was used to gauge student’s motivation in learning English communicative competence before and after the intervention. SPSS (Statistical Pakage for Social Sciences) Program for Windows version 25 was applied to analyze the data using the independent-samples t-test. The findings of this study revealed that the students in the Experimental Group showed significantly higher motivation in learning English communicative competence than the Control Group in their overall motivation and in all the ARCS components (Attention, Relevance, Confidence and Satisfaction). This empirical study has strong pedagogical implication as it suggests that STAD method can be used by English lecturers to enhance students’ motivation in learning English communicative competence.