A Correlative Study On Tolerance Of Ambiguity And English Reading Achievement In Senior High School

In the early 20 th century,psychologyresearchers began to pay attention to the concept of tolerance of ambiguity.In 1948,Frenkel Brunswik,an American psychologist,proposed that ambiguity tolerance is “the perceptual processing of ambiguous environmental stimulus information when individuals or groups face a series of unfamiliar,complexor inconsistent clues”.InEnglish reading learning,the processing of uncertain information has been disturbed many learners.If learners have no tolerance consciousness,it will affect the effect of English reading learning directly.Most studies showed that ambiguity tolerance exists in foreign language learners and there is a positive correlation with foreign language achievement.However,most of these studies are based on college students or English majors,and few of them focus on senior high school students.Based on this situation,this paper will study the correlation between ambiguity tolerance and students’ English reading achievement in senior high school.The research mainly investigates the current situation of ambiguity tolerance of students in Mudanjiang Senior High School,and studies the correlation between ambiguity tolerance and foreign language reading performance combined with reading comprehension test scores.The author of the present study chose 224 students from Senior One students as subjects,the effective questionnaires are 204.The questionnaire is an ambiguity tolerance scale designed by Ely.The results show that the ambiguity tolerance of senior high school students is generally low.This paper attempts to investigate the correlation between ambiguity tolerance and English reading achievement of senior high school students by using modern statistical method SPSS and linear regression analysis.The results of the study can be summarized as follows:(1)High school students have the low tolerance of ambiguity.(2)The author finds that there is a positive correlation between English reading achievement and tolerance of ambiguity by the analysis of the correlation between 204 students’ mid-term achievement andambiguity tolerance.Students with low tolerance of ambiguity scored significantly lower than those with high tolerance of ambiguity in English reading.The results of investigation and data analysis show that: ambiguity tolerance has a certain impact on senior high school students’ foreign language reading achievement.It can contribute a lot to students’ foreign language learning by helping students develop awareness of ambiguity tolerance.Teachers should strengthen guidance to make students accept ambiguity tolerance properly in practical reading teaching,alleviate students’ anxiety.Teacher should also improve their academic level and professional accomplishment to enhance the efficiency of English learning.