A Study On Demotivation,Self-concept And Their Relationships With Academic Achievement Of Non-english Majors In English Learning

As the important affective factors of English learning,motivation and self-concept have received extensive attention.Previous researches have proven that high level of motivation and positive self-concept contribute to academic performance.However,it is easy to notice that some students are demotivated in English learning and previous studies on demotivation mainly focused on the demotivating factors and paid little attention to the relationship between demotivation,self-concept and academic achievement.The present study investigates demotivation,English self-concept and their relationships with academic achievement of non-English majors in EFL.This study can help researchers and teachers learn about the students' affective factors in EFL,including the negative factors that may influence learning.Besides,it can expand the theoretical researches on motivation in EFL and English self-concept,thereby providing guidance for the improvement of motivation,self-concept and academic achievement in English learning.This study made a questionnaire survey among 1205 non-English majors in a comprehensive university of Shanxi Province.Then SPSS 17.0 was used to analyze the collected data.Descriptive statistics was first used to investigate the overall situation of demotivation in EFL and English self-concept;Independent sample t-test was then employed to explore the influence of gender and major on demotivation and English self-concept respectively;Thirdly,One-way Variance analysis was used to examine the difference of demotivation and English self-concept in achievement levels.At last,the present study employed correlation analysis to investigate the relationships between demotivation,English self-concept and academic achievement.The results show that:(1)The intensity of demotivation and English self-concept are in a medium level for non-English majors,and the demotivating factors are teacher,student,learning environment and teaching content.(2)Gender has a significant influence on demotivation intensity and some demotivating factors.Besides,gender has a significant influence on the general English self-concept and some dimensions of it;Major has a significant influence on teacher-related factors and teaching content-related factors.There also exist differences in some dimensions of English self-concept in relation to major.(3)Students with different levels of proficiency show significant differences in demotivation intensity and student-related factors,and differences also exist in the general English self-concept,reading self-concept,grammar&vocabulary self-concept,writing self-concept and listening self-concept in relation to proficiency level.For freshmen,there exist significant negative correlations between demotivation intensity,teacher-related factors,student-related factors and academic achievement.For sophomores,there exist significant negative correlations between demotivation intensity,student-related factors and academic achievement.All the dimensions of English self-concept have significant positive correlations with academic achievement and have significant negative correlations with demotivation intensity for both freshmen and sophomores.Based on the researches mentioned above,the author provides some suggestions for college English teaching in the future.