Abstract:
The main objective of this study was to investigate the effect of using authentic audio materials
on EFL students’ listening self-efficacy, motivation and comprehension. The study employed a
quasi-experimental research design. Furthermore, both quantitative and qualitative approaches
were used in the study. The participants of the study were 1st - year undergraduate students of
Jimma University who were assigned to the Social Sciences’ Stream in 2022.Two intact groups
were randomly selected among the total of 20 groups and assigned randomly to treatment and
control groups for the research. The treatment group contained 51 students and similarly, the
control group contained 51 students. To collect the quantitative data, listening comprehension
tests and questionnaires were used whereas to collect the qualitative data, reflective journal was
used. The quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS version 23 by employing inferential
statistics specifically, Independent samples t-test. The qualitative data were analyzed using a
qualitative software analysis tool called Atlas.ti version 7. The quantitative results of the findings
showed a statistically significant difference in favour of the treatment group regarding the effect
of using authentic audio materials on students’ listening self-efficacy (t(100) = 3.896, p=0.001),
students’ listening motivation (t(100) =3.320, p=0.001) and students’ listening comprehension
(t(100) = 3.184, p=0.002). These findings showed that using authentic audio materials in EFL
classrooms helps students to improve their listening self-efficacy, motivation and comprehension.
Moreover, the results of the qualitative findings also showed that most of the participants found
authentic audio materials motivating and empowering in their listening self-efficacy and
listening comprehension improvement. Based on these findings, the researcher recommends that
carefully selected authentic audio materials with graded tasks should be used in EFL listening
classrooms.
