A Survey Study On Senior Two Students' English Grammar Self-efficacy

First proposed by American psychologist Bandura in his social learning concept in 1977,self-efficacy has raised widespread concern and application in the foreign language teaching and research.Previous studies mainly concentrate on self-efficacy concerning basic skills,for example,listening,speaking,reading and writing skills.However,few researches touch on English grammar self-efficacy.To fill up this gap,this study is carried out to investigate the status quo of Senior Two students' overall English grammar self?efficacy,including grammar knowledge self-efficacy and grammar skill self-efficacy.It aims to explore the differences between male and female students,and also the differences between Arts and Science students in terms of grammar self-efficacy.Besides,it probes the relationship between grammar performance and grammar self-efficacy in detail.The specific research questions to be addressed in the study are:1)What is the general situation of Senior Two students' overall English grammar self-efficacy?2)What are the differences between male and female students in English grammar self-efficacy?3)What are the differences between Science and Arts students in English grammar self-efficacy?4)Are there any relationships between English grammar self-efficacy and grammar performance?If any,what are the correlations?In this study,both quantitative and qualitative research methods are adopted.The quantitative research includes a questionnaire survey of Senior Two students' English grammar self-efficacy,which is an adapted version of Bai Liru's English Grammar Competence Scale for English Majors.It is composed of twenty questions,which are classified into two broad categories,grammar knowledge self-efficacy and grammar skill self?efficacy.The questionnaire survey was administrated to one hundred and fifty Senior Two students(57 male and 93 female;75 Arts students and 75 Science students)from Taixing No.1 Senior High School.All the questionnaires were collected and found valid.The data were analyzed with SPSS 21.0.Additionally,to evaluate Senior Two students' grammar performance,the subjects are required to take an English grammar performance test consisting of 50 multiple choices,which are selected from National College Entrance Examination in the recent 6 years(2012-2017)in Jiangsu.The qualitative research is a semi-structured interview with ten Arts students and ten Science students from Taixing No.1 Senior High School.All interviewees have participated in the previous questionnaire part.Use the common type of one-on-one interview with questions prepared in advance.The interviewees could express themselves either in Chinese or English.The interviews were recorded and transcribed later.Results and conclusion of quantitative and qualitative research are described as below.Firstly,Senior Two students experience a medium level of English grammar self-efficacy.They have a relatively higher self-efficacy in English grammar knowledge than English grammar skill.To be specific,of the ten items of English grammar knowledge self-efficacy,Senior Two students feel more knowledgeable in numerals and subject-predicative agreement,and feel less knowledgeable in coordinate sentences,attributive clauses,noun clauses and adverbial clauses.Meanwhile,as to the ten items of English grammar skill self-efficacy,Senior Two students have more confidence in combining two simple sentences into a coordinate sentence.They feel less confident in combining three or four simple sentences into a compound sentence.Secondly,compared with female students,the male students have a slightly lower level of overall English grammar self-efficacy,English grammar knowledge self-efficacy and English grammar skill self-efficacy.However,the difference is not significant enough.That is to say,there exists no significant difference between male and female students in terms of overall English grammar self-efficacy,English grammar knowledge self-efficacy and English grammar skill self-efficacy.Nevertheless,none of the ten items of English grammar skill self-efficacy shows significant differences between the male and female students.It means that Senior Two students experience a similar level of English grammar self-efficacy regardless of gender.Thirdly,Arts students have a relatively higher level of overall English grammar self-efficacy.Both Arts and Science students show English grammar self-efficacy at a similar level,differences are not so obvious.As for English grammar learning self-efficacy,Arts students generally experience a relatively higher mean score than those Science students.However,their differences are not significant enough,as is the case with the other sub-dimension English grammar skill self-efficacy.Fourthly,English grammar self-efficacy is positively and significantly correlated with English grammar performance.In addition,overall English grammar self-efficacy is positively correlated with its two sub-dimensions grammar knowledge self-efficacy and grammar skill self-efficacy.It means that improving students' English grammar knowledge level and grammar skills can bring confident for them in dealing with English grammar.Moreover,English grammar knowledge self-efficacy is positively correlated with English grammar skill self-efficacy.In other words,the higher the level of English grammar knowledge is,the more confidence students will have in English grammar skill and vice versa.According to the results and analysis,some useful suggestions are put forward.Firstly,teachers should assume the responsibility to make students realize where their strengths and weaknesses lie in the course of grammar learning.Teachers should engage students in setting appropriate goals,which will equip them with successful learning experience in English grammar.Secondly,positive classroom language is essential to improving grammar self-efficacy.Constant encouragement instead of criticism enhances students' willingness to get involved in class activities,thus in turn improving their grammar self-efficacy.Thirdly,creating a harmonious teacher-learner relationship is compulsory for improvement of grammar self-efficacy.Therefore,teachers should take extensive measures to better communicate with students,enhancing the relationship of mutual support and understanding between each other.