An Investigation Into The Developmental Patterns And Influencing Factors Of College Students' Autonomous English Learning-a Cross-sectional Study

Autonomous English learning is very important in College English learning and teaching. After reviewing the previous researches in the field, this paper aims to examine the developmental patterns of college students'autonomous English learning with regard to two aspects: students'autonomous learning belief and their actual autonomous learning behavior in English learning with a working definition of"learner autonomy"in this study presented after a brief introduction to the two main terms involved in this study. The underlying assumption of the study is that students'belief toward and their actual behavior demonstrated in autonomous learning combined will determine the developmental degree of their autonomous learning. Data were collected using two questionnaires and group interviews from English as Foreign Language (EFL) students among four universities (Beijing Normal University, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology and Wuhan University) with 1236 participants responded to the questionnaires and 12 of them carefully selected for conducting the group interviews. Descriptive statistics and the results of One-Way ANOVA analysis were used to analyze the data of the questionnaires for examining the developmental patterns of students'autonomous English learning in terms of their grade levels in three sub-dimensions: formulating learning objective and learning plans, employing learning strategies as well as self-monitoring and self-evaluating the learning process. Group interviews were conducted for exploring various factors affecting students'autonomous English learning and determine the favorable and unfavorable influencing factors through careful analysis of the interview dialogues.The major findings are as follows: (1) the autonomous English learning belief students of different grade levels hold are different, but the difference is not statistically significant. Specifically speaking, G2 students are the most psychologically autonomous among the three grades of students while G1 students hold somewhat more positive belief toward autonomous English learning than G3 students. (2) G2 students demonstrate the best autonomous learning behavior in all of the three dimensions examined in this study. G1 students get a comparatively good performance in formulating learning objective and learning plans as well as self-monitoring and self-evaluating the learning process than G3 students whereas G3 students do a better job in employing learning strategies. (3) although the favorable and unfavorable factors that influence different grades of students'autonomous English learning are somewhat different, the majority of students from three grade level agree that three factors influence their English learning most, they are: motivation, learning environment and learning strategies.