A Study Of Academic Success/Failure Self-attribution Of English Major Student

Based on B. Weiner’s attribution theory, the present study investigatedthe attribution preference of English-major students.The impact of individual differences on foreign language learning hasbeen receiving more and more attention of scholars in the development ofthe domain of second language acquisition research. Among them,attribution theory, which concerning how students interpret their academicsuccess or failure, has drawn widespread attention. Causal attributions areindividuals’ perceptions of the causes of various achievement outcomes. Itrefers to the deductive process in which people explain the reasons for theirown behavior or others’. The reason why attribution study is of greatimportance is that on one hand it is the connection between cognitive theoryand behavioral theory. On the other hand attribution is proved to have amajor impact on subsequent behaviors such us emotion, self-efficacy,mental-health and euphoria. Attribution may have positive effects as well asnegative effects which may accordingly facilitate or impede foreignlanguage learning. It is practical to produce positive attribution throughattribution training.Applying psychological theory into the field of education makes itpossible for the teacher to go deeper into the inside world of a learner and lead him to make positive attribution for academic achievement so as tofacilitate English learning. A study of the attribution belief of English-majorstudents is the first step that is the basis on which the following attributiontraining, which aims at helping students make positive attribution, can beplaned and conducted.The present study is an investigation which applies attribution theoryin English teaching, aiming to explore the attribution preference ofEnglish-major students.169English-major students were involved in thestudy. A questionnaire (MMCS) was used to collect information of students’attribution preference. Their English proficiency is classified into fourgroups according to their TEM-4score in order to compare the attributionpreference of different groups. Taking the advantage of SPSS19.0,descriptive analysis, One-way ANOVA, Independent-Sample t-test andPearson correlation analysis were implemented.Given the condition that a quite large number of studies on theAttribution theory were conducted on subjects as junior or high schoolstudents or college students of other majors, the present study aims atstudying the attributional condition of English-major students andanswering the following question:1. What are the attribution preferences ofEnglish-major students in Baotou Teachers College?2. Is there anydifference of attribution preference among students of differentachievement levels?3. Is English proficiency related to self-attributions to success and failure in English learning? If yes，to what extent?4. Will theattributional believes of the English major students manifest themselvesonly in Weiner’s three dimensions of attribution: locus of causality, stabilityand controllability?The statistical results show that:1. The general tendency of attributionpreference is positive and students tend to attribute success as well asfailure to effort;2. There is only significant difference among groups inattributing failure to luck with which students with relatively lowerproficiency are more likely to explain their failure;3. Attribution preferenceis correlated with English proficiency;4. Students’ attribution preferencesmanifested themselves perfectly in Weiner’s three dimensions. The resultssuggest that it is necessary to conduct attribution training among studentsduring which how to arouse students’ motivation should also be considered.In addition the results provide evidence for the necessity of attributiontraining.The present thesis consists of five chapters.Chapter one introduces the research background, significance andstructure of the thesis; Chapter two presents a retrospect of the AttributionTheory and achievements made in previous studies; Chapter threedemonstrates in details the research method of the present study; Chapterfour displays the research results and the quantitative and qualitativeanalysis results and discussion; Chapter five draws a conclusion of the whole research and put forward suggestions for further study, for example,to enlarge research sample, or implement the research in the first and lastyear of college within the same group of students to examine the changes ofattribution belief and during this period the intervention of attributiontraining can be conducted as an empirical study to testify the effect ofattribution training.