Task-Induced Involvement Loads and Iranian Intermediate EFL Learners’ Knowledge of Collocations and Level of Motivation

The study intended to investigate the impact of task involvement loads on Iranian EFL learnersˈ collocation knowledge and their level of motivation. To achieve these goals, a sample of 78 intermediate learners were selected based on Solutions Placement Test. The participants were divided into three experimental groups of 26 learners assigned to one of the experimental conditions, namely tasks with involvement load 3 (multiple-choice, MC), and involvement load 2 (Fill-in-the-blanks, FB), and 4 (sentence formation, SF). Before running pretest to the groups, their familiarity with the targeted collocations were tested. Over the treatment course, learners in MC were provided with the collocations requiring them to recognize the right collocations in the multiple-choice format tests. The learners in FB group were provided with the same collocations but were required to complete sentences with appropriate collocations given at the end of the text. Finally, the learners in SF group were asked to make their own sentences using the given collocations. At the end, a learning motivation questionnaire was administered to the learners to determine the possible association(s) of task involvement loads with the learners’ learning motivation. The results of a one-way ANOVA indicated the three groups showed different results on the posttests. However, the SF difference with MC and FB was the highest indicating the highest impact of SF on the learners’ L2 collocations. The results of a multiple regression analysis also indicated different associations between the involvement loads and learners’ motivation. The findings can have pedagogical and theoretical implications for EFL teachers, learners, and researchers.