The Role of Gender, Age, and Educational Level in Motivation of Learning Persian as a Second Language

There has been a growing interest in class-related motivational research since 1975, and many studies have been conducted on a variety of motivational models. The present study, on the base of Dornyei Motivational self-systems (2005) and the history of research related to the motivation for learning a second language such as Gardner (1985), Clement (1980), and Clement and Kruidenier (1985), Taguchi (2010) , Papi (2010) Magid (2011), examines 16 motivational along with the effect of gender, age, and student’s degrees variables on Persian language learning motivation among non-Persian students For this purpose, 300 non-native Persian learners (women and men of different nationalities and educational levels) aged between 18 and 50 from the Persian language teaching centers of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Imam Khomeini International University in Qazvin , and Tehran University of Medical Sciences, responded to a questionnaire with 16 factors(92 items). Validity and reliability of the questionnaire were evaluated and verified using PPL software. The results of the study showed that all 16 proposed components had a significant effect on the learnerchr('39')s motivation. Also, the motivational factors, in terms of rank, do not have the same effect on the motivation of non-native Persian learners. In addition, the results showed that women and men differ in their motivational factors. It was also found that older age groups are more likely to be motivated than younger ones. There was a significant relationship between educational level and some motivational variables.