Relationship between Demotivation Factors and Gender among Iranian EFL Students and Teachers in Iranian Academic Contexts

One of the essential factors that influence the rate and success of learning a foreign language is motivation. The present study was an attempt to consider the relationship between demotivation factors and gender among Iranian EFL students and teachers in academic contexts. To this end, 40 EFL students and 15 teachers at Islamic Azad University, Ahwaz Branch (IAUAB) were selected based on available sampling. They were females and males and their ages ranged from 25 to 50. The Demotivation Questionnaire was given to the students to explore the sources of demotivation and also if there were any relationship between demotivation factors and gender among the Iranian EFL students. Additionally, the Teacher Demotivation Questionnaire was distributed among 15 teachers to understand the reasons for their demotivation. After administrating the questionnaires, an interview was conducted with 10 volunteer teachers (5 males and 5 females) and 15 students (8 males and 7 females) to extract a detailed description of their demotivation factors. For analyzing the collected data, Independent sample t-test was employed to consider the relationship between demotivation factors and gender. The results indicated that males and females were different significantly and males were more demotivated than females. Moreover, teachers and students were demotivated because of the methods of teaching, lack of facilities, working, and physical conditions. The findings of this study may help students, teachers, and syllabus designers to eliminate the demotivation factors in the academic contexts and raise motivation to facilitate the learning process.