The Influence Of Causal Attributions On English Learning Strategy Use Of University Art Students

With the world becoming a global village, English, the international language plays an unprecedentedly important role in international communication and cooperation in the areas of culture, economy, science and technology. China is undergoing a great transformation as it is making progress by leaps and bounds. Quality education becomes a hot term and core issue.Quality education emphasizes that the aim of education is not only to transmit scientific knowledge but also to produce autonomous learners who are responsible for managing their own learning throughout their life. In this great transform, the aim of English teaching shifts from merely teaching knowledge and skills as reading, speaking, listening and writing to producing autonomous learners who are responsible for managing their own learning. Thus teaching students how to study English effectively by using learning strategies has become a hot topic in China.A lot of constructive researches have been conducted on the description, classification and function of learning strategies employed by learners in the learning process. It turns out that learning strategies are not absolutely good for all learners in all contexts and that factors affecting strategy use like affective factors, cognitive styles and learning environment have more or less been neglected. Motivation is one of the most important factors that influence students learning outcomes. According to Atkinson (1966), there are two types of motivation-the positive motivation to strive for success and the negative inhibitory tendency to avoid failure. According to Weiner, in educational settings, four basic causes of achievement are postulated:ability, effort, task difficulty and luck. It is proposed that causal attributions are another type of beliefs that affects learners'motivation to select and use effective learning strategies. Although there has been an increasing amount of interest in the interrelationship of motivation and strategy use in second language (L2) context (Oxford & Nyikos,1989; Schmid et al.1996; Wen,2001), little has been known about the relationship between strategy use and achievement motivation in foreign language learning (FLL) context and there exists a shortage of empirical studies on how causal attributions influence strategy use in L2 learning. Thus, there is an extremely promising area for research on the relationship between strategy use and causal attributions of the foreign language learners in China especially of university art students.To bridge the gap, the present study has attempted to explore the influence of causal attributions on learners'strategy use. It aims to provide empirical evidence that these factors may have an effect on the choice of learning strategies.The subjects involved were 80 first year art students from Southwest University. An English Learning Questionnaire was administered, which was designed to assemble information on language learners'individual background, learning strategies and causal attributions. The data obtained was analyzed by the Statistical Program for Social Sciences (SPSS) (13.0) software. The statistical analyses employed were descriptive statistics, t-test, product-moment correlation, multivariate analysis of variance and multiple regressions. The findings are summarized as follows:(1) The university art students in China do employ six categories of learning strategies in their English learning. Compensation strategies are reported as being used the most frequently, while memory strategies are reported as being employed the least frequently and there is a strong correlation between learning strategies and language proficiency. The students with higher level of language proficiency tend to use more strategies.(2) As regards with the attribution, majority of students attribute their success or failure in English learning to internal factors, and there is difference in causal attributions between different proficiency groups. Students with higher level of language proficiency are more inclined to attribute their English learning performance to internal factors.(3) Internal-success and internal-failure attributions are two strong predictors of strategy use. Attribution exerts influence on proficiency by way of strategy.The findings derived from this study provide university teachers who teach art students with some useful insights.(1) The university English teacher may incorporate the findings of this research into future college English teaching; explore more factors affecting the use of learning strategies so as to help individuals find out proper learning strategies which are beneficial for the students who will take responsibility for their own learning required in lifelong learning.(2) The university English teacher should have a better understanding of the causal attributions of art students and make efforts to shape their positive beliefs about the causes of success and failure, changing their passive attributional beliefs, fostering correct learning attitude.However, the study is far from perfection, and there also exist some limitations. For instance, the research sample is comparatively small. Moreover, multiple data collection techniques will be more accurate. Therefore, the results obtained in the present study leave much to be improved and it is hoped that further research will lead to more overall and accurate results.