A Study On The Relationship Between Non-English Major Postgraduates' English Autonomous Learning Ability And English Self-Efficacy

With the rapid development of science and technology as well as the formation of lifelong education,it is essential to make people learn automatically.American psychologist Bandura indicates that learner's self-efficacy is one of the key factors influencing learner's autonomous learning ability.As data reveals,many researchers pay more attention to examining the relationship between learner's autonomous learning ability and self-efficacy.Middle school students and senior high school students are usually regarded as research subjects by foreign researchers.In China,the range of research subjects is much broader.However,non-English major postgraduates are rarely regarded as research subjects in their studies.What's more,the Non-English Major Postgraduates' English Autonomous Learning Ability Questionnaire is designed to measure learner's English autonomous learning ability based on Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire(Pintrich,et,al,1991,1993).Therefore,the thesis treats non-English major postgraduates as research subjects to examine the relationship between their English autonomous learning ability and self-efficacy.200 non-English major postgraduates and 4 English teachers are randomly chosen as research subjects and the thesis adopts questionnaires and interviews to study the following questions:(1)What's the overall situation of non-English major postgraduates' English autonomous learning ability and English self-efficacy?(2)Is there a correlation between non-English major postgraduates' English autonomous learning ability and English self-efficacy? If so,is there a positive or negative one between them?(3)Is there a causal relationship between non-English major postgraduates' English self-efficacy and English autonomous learning ability? If so,how does learners' English self-efficacy influence their English autonomous learning ability?The SPSS.19.0 is used to analyze the data collected in the thesis and the major findings are as follows:(1)The levels of non-English major postgraduates' English autonomous learning ability and English self-efficacy are at the medium levels.(2)There is a positive medium correlation between non-English major postgraduates' English autonomous learning ability and English self-efficacy.(3)There is a casual relationship between non-English major postgraduates' English self-efficacy and English autonomous learning ability.It means that the higher learners' English self-efficacy is,the higher their English autonomous learning ability will be.