Motivation for English Medium Instruction Among Chinese University Students: The Effect of Gender, Academic Level, Attitude and Linguistic Self-Confidence

English Medium Instruction (EMI), the educational practice where subject contents are taught via English to students whose native language is other than English, has been gaining momentum as with the continuous internationalization processes of universities. Learners' motivation towards EMI is a central research topic with its potential impact on academic success and other dimensions of learning. Past studies have mostly examined the linguistic aspect of EMI motivation, making such line of inquiry predominantly focused on the perception of language. However, as content learning is the major target in EMI, a wholistic perspective is required for the study of EMI motivation. Such research efforts, to our knowledge, are limited. Further, studies on motivation mainly concentrated on undergraduate students, leaving another important student group, i.e., postgraduate students, neglected, and several potential influencing variables are yet to be explored. To fill these gaps, the present study explored university students' (n = 642) EMI motivation in China, where EMI is expanding rapidly across all academic levels of tertiary education. We compared students' motivational intensity in terms of gender and academic levels (bachelor, master and PhD), and identified possible predictors. Findings reveal that significant differences existed between genders and among students at different academic levels, and that attitude and linguistic self-confidence predicted motivational levels. These findings could hopefully enhance scholarly understandings of EMI and provide implications for EMI teaching.