Effects of Motivation and Gender on the Choice of Language Learning Strategies by Iranian Postgraduate Students

This study examined the influence of motivation and gender on the choice of language learning strategies by Iranian post-graduate students. One hundred and fifty six Iranian post-graduate students in Kerman province were selected based on a two-step cluster sampling. A translated version of Oxford's strategy inventory for language learning was administered to the participants to determine their use of strategies. Attitude/motivation test battery was also employed to identify the participants' type of motivation. Data analysis showed the following results: a) the participants reported the use of compensation, social, metacognitive, and affective strategies at a high level, whereas memory and cognitive strategies were reported at a medium level; b) integratively-motivated students showed higher overall strategies mean score than instrumentally-motivated ones but it was not statistically significant. Instrumentally-motivated students employed memory strategy more frequently than integratively-motivated students; c) female students employed strategies more frequently than male students. However, this difference was found to be not statistically significant. The findings also showed that the teachers should encourage the learners to actively employ all the strategies in their learning process. Future research may focus on the sub-categories of the strategies and other factors, such as attitude, age, major, personality types, and testing methods.