Motivation and attitudes of Polish students learning Hebrew

Limited studies have been carried out in Poland to investigate the motivation which is activated and maintained among Polish students learning Hebrew as their optional second language. The aim of this research was to examine the relationships among integrative and instrumental attitudes and motivation level (Gardner, 1985a) in two age groups of students learning Hebrew, using an 18-item questionnaire adapted from the AMTB (Gardner, 1985b). Contrary to expectations, gender and family ties did not significantly bias the motivation and attitudes in the sample investigated. Close relationships were found between age and integrative attitude and motivation intensity: older students had a more integrative attitude than younger students and experienced more intensive motivation.