The Role of Enjoyment in Mediating the Effect of Motivation on Students' Attitudes toward Learning English

This research explores how motivation and enjoyment are associated with students’ perspectives on learning English in secondary education. Adopting a quantitative methodology with data collected from 240 learners, the study applied Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to assess whether enjoyment plays a mediating role between motivation and attitude. The analysis revealed that motivation has a significant impact on both enjoyment and learners' attitudes toward English learning, reinforcing its foundational importance in language acquisition. In contrast, enjoyment was found to have no significant direct effect on attitude and did not function as a mediator in the model. These outcomes highlight that although enjoyment can enrich the educational experience, it may not directly influence how students perceive English as a subject. This research adds to the understanding of second language learning by underlining the primary influence of motivation and provides actionable recommendations for educators to focus more on cultivating motivational aspects rather than depending solely on affective experiences.