A Study On Teaching Attribution Of University English Teachers

Since causal attribution was initiated by Header in1958, causal attribution has been an important research topic in psychological field. It is of vitally practical and profound significance in the realm of social psychology, educational psychology and developmental psychology. Since the early1990s, foreign scholars and researchers have realized the importance of causal attribution. Based on Weiner’s attribution theory, they have been interested in how different attributions of foreign learners relate to their learning motivation, and academic performance at school. However, researches on teaching attributions of university English teachers have been limited until now.The purpose of the present research investigates attribution tendencies and differences of university English teachers with a questionnaire and informal interview concerning teachers’ teaching attribution. Firstly, the author examines sixty English teachers from Northeast Forestry University as the sample analysis to inspect the validity and reliability of the questionnaire. Then, through using SPSS19.0, the major research methods such as descriptive analysis (percent, mean, and standard deviation), independent sample test and One-way ANOVA are conducted to explore the teaching attribution of150English teachers from four universities in Heilongjiang province.Results of the current study are reported in detail. On average, firstly, English teachers tend to attribute their main successful teaching to internal factors while they tend to attribute main failure to external factors. Secondly, university English teachers have different attribution tendencies. English teachers with different genders have different teaching attribution tendencies in the context of failure teaching attributions. Ages of English teachers have partial effect on their success and failure teaching attributions. English teachers’professional titles influence their internal-external failure teaching attributions. Mean values of English teachers below5teaching years are obviously higher than those of English teachers from16to25teaching years in effort factor of unsuccessful and successful teaching attributions. Educational backgrounds of English teachers have significant differences in internal factors of unsuccessful and successful teaching attributions.Based on results of the current study, some suggestions are given to teachers and university administrators. Teachers are advised to often make attributions for their teaching outcomes and pay more attention to communication with their colleagues and students in order to form positive teaching attributions. University administrators are advocated to attend to mental and physical health of English teachers with long teaching years and high professional titles. In addition, the author analyzes limitations of the current study from the theoretical and empirical perspectives, at the same time, offers some suggestions for further study.