The Mediating Effect of Language Skills Development in the Relationship of Vocabulary Learning Strategies and Motivation to Learn

Aims: To determine if there is a relationship between motivation, vocabulary learning strategies, and language skills development among Senior high School students. To determine also the mediating effect of language skills development in motivation to learn and vocabulary learning strategies.

Study Design: Quantitative non-experimental design.

Place and Duration of the Study: The study was conducted among Senior High School students in Rizal Memorial College, Assumption College of Davao, and University of Mindanao during the school year 2022-2023.

Methodology: The respondents were 355 senior high school students from private schools in Davao City, Region 11, Philippines. The respondents were chosen using stratified random sampling. The data were collected using survey questionnaire.

Results: The overall results showed that the respondents had a moderate level of vocabulary learning strategies and high level of motivation and language skills development. It also showed a significant relationship between three variables: motivation to learn, vocabulary learning strategies, and language skills development. Results also showed that language skills development had a partial mediation in the relationship of motivation to learn and vocabulary learning strategies.

Conclusions: The high level of motivation to learn and language skills development indicates that motivation is already shown in students and developing their language skills is often manifested in them. However, the moderate level of vocabulary learning strategies indicates that students are not always using the strategies to improve their vocabulary. Thus, researcher recommends that teachers provide activities like mystery word, dictionary dig, digital vocabulary field trip and many more for students to use vocabulary learning strategies and enhance their interest in learning. More importantly, teachers should emphasize to students the importance of believing in themselves as stated in self-efficacy theory.