Chinese Vocational Students' Motivational Factors Pertaining to Gender within College English Curricula: a Study within a Southwestern Chinese Context

Predominant research within Chinese academic contexts focusing on students’ L2 motivational factors remain rooted inlarge-scale research that does not draw a distinction between students from different regional groups within Chinese higher educa-tion. This research seeks to focus specifically on a less-studied group within the Chinese College English curriculum: vocationalstudents—especially vocational students studying within an educational institution in the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing.This small-scale survey(n = 129) was conducted in College English classes to determine if the motivational factors of vocationalstudents remained aligned or distinct from those of their peers across Chinese higher education. Subsequent analysis from the sur-vey findings have shown that while gender differences remain manifested and are aligned with established trends and assumptionspertaining to L2 motivational factors within this context, more research is required to delve into the reasons and rationale behindthe choices made by vocational students in southwestern China within this particular survey instrument.