A Study On The Autonomous Development Of English Postgraduates' Academic Research Competence

With the development of globalization and technology, English learning is playing anincreasingly indispensable role in our society. With the implementation of academic degreesystem in1981, our country has formed a set of graduate education system which is in linewith our context. Accordingly, the enrollment of English major postgraduates expanded and aconsiderable proportion of them are the backbone of the future English teachers andresearchers, whose academic research competence and ability of dealing with practicalproblems have great impacts on the quality of future English education and the postgraduates'professional development. However, according to China's education human resourcesdevelopment report (2006), it shows that59.6%of the postgraduates' tutors reckon the qualityof the postgraduates is decreasing, especially their academic research competence. Althoughsome financial and physical conditions for developing their academic competence arefacilitative, there also exist some limitations, such as academic motivation, learning strategies,curriculum setting, teaching guide, and academic assessment, which will constrain thedevelopment of their academic research competence. Then based on the current situation, someresearchers and scholars (Dai Weidong, Wang Xuemei,2009) are striving for studies on how toimprove the postgraduates' academic research competence. And it is found that learnerautonomy plays a more important role in dealing with the problems during their learning andapproaches to enhance their research competence in addition to the instructions of the teachers.Besides, due to the importance of the cultivation of English postgraduates' criticalthinking, which is the core of academic research competence (Wen Qiufang,2008) and on thebasis of the current situation of the quality of postgraduate education (Wang Xuemei,2007), itis advisable to provide some related courses. Then under the context, in order to improve thepostgraduates' academic research competence, a university in Shan Xi Province attempts toopen a research-oriented course for the English postgraduates entitled "Foreign LanguageTeaching Theory&Practice" as an optional course, among which, the professor designatessome autonomous learning tasks. Thus in order to evaluate the effectiveness of autonomy inimproving the learners' academic research competence, the author attempts to explore how thelearners conduct their autonomy in the designated autonomous learning tasks, what internaland external factors can influence their autonomy in conducting research activities, whetherautonomous learning the designated tasks can have impacts on the learners' perceptions and engagement in and with researches and then finally put forward some coping strategies forfurther developing their academic research competence. The research sets25English majorpostgraduates as the research subject with English education as their research orientation.The methodologies employed in this study are the quantitative and qualitative methods toexplore the problems illustrated above. It will involve interviews, reflection writings andquestionnaires. And the research lasts for a whole semester from September2010to January2011.The research explores how the English postgraduates conduct their autonomous learningtasks, and the result shows that group discussion, cooperative learning, some interestingactivities, a variety of learning tools and the modern multi-media technology are attached greatimportance to. As to the internal and external factors that affect their autonomous researching,it is found that motivation and academic ability have great impact on their autonomy inresearching. And in terms of external factors, school's policy and management will to someextent constrain their autonomous researching, and the academic atmosphere and theinstruction of the tutor will to some extent facilitate their autonomy. Afterwards, the authormakes a comparison and contrast about the questionnaire pre and after their course to explorewhether autonomous learning the designated tasks can have impacts on their understanding andengagement in and with research. The result of the investigation reveals that the participantshave a new and correct understanding about research and their awareness and the degree oftheir participation in and with research activities are enhanced. Then based on the result of theinvestigation, the study attempts to put forward some coping strategies to further develop theiracademic research competence. The strategies are listed as follows: promote the learners'perceptions about research, increase their professional knowledge and competence, carry outreflective learning, and implement collaborative learning, which are proved to be effective inenhancing their academic research competence.